Falling Star
by Dark Lady of Witchcraft
Summary: A true story of Tom Marvolo Riddle, written by himself. From the earliest childhood to the dark times of Lord Voldemort. How the man becomes evil...
1. Orphanage

DISCLAIMER: This story is something completely different that my previous one. Of course, it is related to HP by the fact that everything happens in the magical world, but this is Tom's story so you will not find here neither Harry nor Severus nor other characters from the original HP. Tom Riddle and all facts from his life that you can recognise, belong to JKR. The rest is mine and I also use some ideas and characters from my previous story (f.e. relation between Tom and Dumbledore, Perseus Potter, Vega Starlight).   
  


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FALLING STAR

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Editor's note:  
  
The memoirs of Tom Marvolo Riddle, better known as Lord Voldemort or You-Know-Who, were being written progressively over twenty years, during different stages of the author's life and in the various forms. Some of them had a character of a typical diary while the others have been compiled from a collection of notes which style was very close to the bald reports.  
  
It has never been author's purpose to present his memoirs to the public opinion and hence their disordered, often not chronological character. To make them easier for the reader, we divided the memoirs into three parts of a completely different form. Within every part we separated chapters describing some closed stages of the author's life.  
  
We hope that you will enjoy the '_Falling Star_'.  


_Kaliope Scribbler_

  
  
_**PART I (written in the 1944-1946)**_  
  
1.Orphanage  
  
My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle.  
  
At least that was written on a small piece of paper, squeezed in a cold, stiff palm of a woman who had given birth to me. My poor mother who... But no, don't let us anticipate events. Then, that frosty, winter night nobody knew who the woman was, found in a dark lane of Liverpool, lying in a stain of frozen blood and clasping in her arms a small bundle. In the bundle, under a layer of dirty rags, a baby was whimpering.  
  
A procedure in such cases was simple: the woman's body was removed and the baby was brought to the orphanage. An old nun who had opened the door to the frozen policemen sighed heavily at the sight of the bundle put, without excessive softness, in her arms and with experience of many years she went to the office, took out a blank form from a drawer and sat at the old desk of oak. She unpacked the bundle and cast a critical glance at a small living thing, still more purple than pink, who was clasping its small fists and sleeping away the first hours of so promising started life.  
  
'A boy...' muttered the nun filling a suitable blank space of the form 'A date of birth...' she looked at the calendar, then at the wooden clock; it was almost 5 o'clock in the morning 'You must have been born tonight,' she muttered to the baby who completely didn't care about it in that moment 'So let it be January 15th, 1927. Mother...'  
  
In those times, what could be thought about the woman who gave birth to a child on the lane of a harbour district, which was a famous haunt of vice? The nun realised, however, that such word as prostitute would not look well in the child's birth certificate. So, in an impulse of nobleness, she wrote only: 'Dead'. And in the blank space labelled 'father' a single word appeared: 'Unknown'.  
  
Of course, it could have happened in a completely different way. I have been carried away by my imagination again... Anyway, that night, my first night on this wonderful world, I had been counted among the lowest social class and in this connection I were to be given in future such beautiful names as waif, foundling and bastard.  
  
But it had to pass several years before I started to understand the full meaning of those words. I daresay, only to make my life still more bitter and unbearable...  
  


*

My first memories are grey, gloomy and full of some vague fear. I remember a great hall crammed with three rows of beds. Even during the day it was dim and horribly cold, a ceiling was hidden somewhere high in the impenetrable darkness and only a strange rustle allowed to suspect that over our heads there were a real kingdom of animals, which my several years old imagination described as the infernal beasts. Only later I discovered that they were common bats and spiders.  
  
I also realised very quickly that the worst beasts are not animal but humans, and especially young humans. There were always a few dozens of boys in our room, at the age from several to eighteen years. It could seem that the common misery would release in that band some ties, a bound of solidarity or at least sympathy. Nothing like that! The older boys treated us, the small ones, as the worst trashes and tested on us the cruel products of their creative imagination. When only the door had closed behind sister Agnes, who always said an evening prayer with us, the room was plunged in darkness and I was bathed in a cold sweat. I knew, as every small boy did, that in a moment our hell would begin.  
  
I will never forget one night. I was four and I still couldn't understand why it all happened to me. I haven't known yet that among the people, like among the animals, the stronger is always right. When I had finally realised that I remembered this lesson for all my life...  
  
But I was going to write about that night. The hall was icy cold. The executioners dragged me out of bed and made my lie down on a stone floor. They smeared me with an ash from the fireplace, told me to eat rat's droppings and at last, one by one, they pissed on me. Then they sat around and didn't allow me to get up for several hours. And when I was lying there, dirty, wet, chattering my teeth with cold, I thought that I would give everything to be as strong as they were. I wanted to make THEM lying on the cold stones, trembling and begging my mercy. And I would be watching them and laughing...  
  
That night, for the first time in my life, I felt a real hatred and greed of revenge.  
  


*

When I was five I met my first friend. He was a young, dark grey rat that I saw one day in the dinning-room when he was slipping among the rows of thin legs, carrying a piece of a rotten apple in his mouth. He wasn't, of course, the only rat in the building but I noticed that one since he had a torn ear.  
  
I began to observe him. He appeared every morning and was running around the hall, hunting for the garbage that had fallen from the tables. I noticed that other rats didn't treat him friendly, they showed their teeth on him and drove him away from food. And yet my Lopear (how I called him) stood up to them. Once I saw him biting off a bit of tail of a black male rat, twice as big as himself.  
  
I started to leave him food under the table and Lopear learned very quickly in which part of the dinning-room he could always find something good. After a month he began to recognise me and ran towards me even when I had sat at the different table. Soon he began to react to his name and one night I was woken up by a gentle tickle on my cheek. I opened my eyes and in the moonlight, falling through a narrow window, I saw two black, glittering eyes that seemed to announce: 'I found you!' Since that night Lopear has slept in my bed.  
  
Yes, I loved that animal with all might of my five years old heart, so eager for affectation I couldn't expect from the humans. And I think that Lopear loved me, too; he was also very lonely in his world.  
  
I suppose I was really happy then, for the first time in my life. And I naively believed that it would last forever...  
  
One night Lopear didn't come. I've been waiting for him for many hours, tossing in my bad and listening intently for a silent scraping of small claws; but no sound disturbed the silence. Finally I fell asleep. In the morning Lopear didn't come for the breakfast. I started to worry. In the evening I was waiting again, and once more in vain. I decided to look for him. Next day I get up at dawn and inspected the whole building, from attic to the cellars. I checked everywhere but I couldn't find him. I was just coming back, desperate, to dormitory when suddenly I heard a soft squeal coming from a pile of dirty cloths, left near the door of a laundry. I moved closer and parted the pile. Lopear was lying on his side, wet, blood stained. He was trembling. He recognised me and he squealed softly again. I took him carefully in my hands and whispered his name. He looked at me with his wise, black eyes, he scraped my palm with his claw and became motionless, his head hang inertly between my fingers. I've been sitting in the dark corridor for a long time, staring at the cooling body of my friend. That was how I became acquainted with Death...  
  
I was often wondering how he had died. He had to be bitten by other rats. But why? Did they smell a human from him? Or maybe Lopear was so different that they didn't want him to live?  
  


*

Felix arrived to the orphanage several months after Lopear's death. His parents and older sisters died in the fire when he was five. For a year Felix have been wandering among various relatives and finally he landed in the orphanage. He got a bed next to mine and only I could hear Felix sobbing for the whole night after the older boys had prepared a 'warm welcome' for him.  
  
In spite of all buffets that the fate had dealt him, Felix showed an unfading optimism. He was cheerful, lively and full of ideas about what he would do when he grew up. He must have believed in a good omen of his name...  
  
We made friends. For me, who had spent all my life in the orphanage, somebody like Felix was a real revelation. It was him who made me realise that a child should have parents and the own home. I could listen for hours his stories about his mother reading him books, his father flying a kite with him, his grandparents inviting him to their hose in the country. And I began to wonder why I didn't have a normal home. Why, as far as I could remember, no one had ever read fairy-tales for ME. Why didn't I have parents?  
  
'They must be dead' said Felix with an expert tone when I asked that question loudly for the first time 'They must have died when you were very small and that's why you don't remember them. And your relatives didn't want you and you landed here. Like I did!' this last sentence he uttered almost with pride.  
  
I believed at once that it was the case. My parents were dead. If they didn't, would they allow me to pass my childhood in the orphanage? Such possibility didn't even enter my head. How little I still knew...  
  
Meanwhile, new duty occurred in our live: school. We were turned six and we have been sent, together will a small group of other orphans, to the Public School for Boys. It was managed by an old mother Ulrica, German origin advocate of a rigorous, Prussian discipline. Every lesson started and ended with a prayer and we have been taught writing, reading and the basis of arithmetic.  
  
I was a good pupil, the best in the class, and that awaked envy of many boys of the 'good families' who treated the fact, that an orphan dared to be superior to them in any respect, as a blow dealt in their dignity and pride. Soon the envy turned into antipathy and then into open hostility. And then my problems began; or I should say ours, since Felix was always on my side, ready to fight with anybody who had called me 'dirty bastard'.  
  
It was there, in the Public School for Boys, where I understood the whole cruel meaning of that word. Bastard... Born out of wedlock... Arnie Giber explained it thoroughly to me when his band caught us one day in the corner of the school yard.  
  
'Your mother didn't even know who your father was' he said in a tone of a friendly conversation 'I think he was a sailor. There are plenty of them in the harbour district.'  
  
'Or maybe he is that old, blind organ-grinder that is wandering here and there with a monkey on his arm?' suggested small, squint-eyed Simon Simpleton.  
  
'Mad Henry?' Arnie shook with laugher 'Yeah, it's possible! Look at Tommy, he has the same crooked teeth!'  
  
'And protruding ears!' Simon caught my ear and pulled it with all strength 'Tommy!' he squeaked shrilly 'Why haven't you introduced us to your daddy?'  
  
'He is not my father!' I screamed shaking with rage 'My parents are dead!'  
  
Arnie's band roared with laugher, singing clamorously 'Tommy, Tommy, grind a barrel-organ'. I saw Felix clenched his fists and it would undoubtedly ended with a fight if mother Ulrica hadn't emerged from the school door, looking at us severely and significantly hitting her palm with a thin rod. Arnie and his acolytes scampered away with panic.  
  
But doubts that had been awakened in my heart by those words didn't disappear. I began to wonder: and if Arnie was right? What did I know about my parents? Nothing. I decided to find out the truth. I mustered up my courage and in the evening I knocked at the door of the office of sister Bertha, a young nun who had charge of the orphanage's archives. She received me warmly and patiently listened to my request.  
  
'All right, let's check it, Tommy' she said and approached a massive, wooden shelf 'Information about your parents should be here.'  
  
From among a thick heap of documents she pulled out a thin, green folder and put in on the desk.  
  
'Let's see...' she muttered opening the folder.  
  
Inside there was a single sheet of yellowish paper.  
  
'This is your birth certificate,' explained sister Bertha reading the lines of text 'Yes, as I expected...' she looked at me with a kindly sympathy 'Your mum died giving birth to you, Tommy.'  
  
I nodded but I was still staring anticipatingly at sister Bertha's face. I didn't know the second part of the truth yet...  
  
The nun interpreted my silence well, she moved uneasily on the chair and made a gesture as to close the folder, but noticing determination in my eyes she sighed and looked at the form. 'There is nothing written about your father here,' she said 'We don't know who he was.'  
  
My heart sank. Sneering words of Arnie were ringing in my ears: 'Nobody wanted you, little bastard!' I couldn't believe it, it couldn't be truth...  
  
Felix tried to comfort me.  
  
'Listen,' he whispered after sister Agnes had switched off the light in dormitory 'It doesn't mean anything. Maybe he has died, too.'  
  
I wanted to believe my friend's words. I knew, however, that it would be naive illusion. It was Arnie who was right.  
  


*

Felix fell ill several days before my eighth birthday. In the beginning doctor thought it was a common cold, quite normal disease in the building where during the frosty, winter nights rime settled on the walls in a thin, lustrous layer.  
  
Felix had a high temperature and violent headaches. After three days he began to cough and after a week he spat blood. He has been closed in an isolated room. He was lying in malignant fever, whining softly and not recognising anybody.  
  
The doctor stated pneumonia. He advised to send Felix to the hospital but the nuns didn't agree. They said he would feel better here... At the same time they looked with a strange sorrow at his wet, feverish face and sister Bertha crossed herself.  
  
I suppose I didn't fully realise the seriousness of situation. Of course, I wasn't a small child and I knew that diseases very often happened to be fatal. Scarcely a month ago three orphans died of measles. But I simply couldn't imagine that Felix would not recover. And even if the fear sprung up somewhere at the bottom of my mind, I pushed it away and switched my thoughts to the splendid visions of the future that my friend had described to me so many times.  
  
In the morning of my birthday Felix's condition improved unexpectedly. He was still coughing and had a fever but he was quite conscious. I was allowed to visit him. He was very weak but the lustre in his eyes seemed to tell me: 'Don't worry. I will be all right.' I wanted to stay with him longer but the nuns told me I couldn't. So I spent the day solitarily but very heartened up. I was sure that before long Felix would be fine.  
  
It was about midnight when I woke up, I don't know why, with a widely beating heart and with a strange, horrible foreboding. I looked at the empty bed of Felix and then I had the impression that the screams were reaching my ears somewhere from downstairs. I got up and silently slipped out of the hall, my teeth were chattering more with fear than with cold. Led by a terrific conviction I ran straight to the isolated room. The door was opened. Felix was struggling in convulsions, wheezing and moaning. From the corners of his mouth blood was dripping mingled with a foamy spit.  
  
I rushed into the room and ran towards the bed. The nuns tried to turn me out but I clang to the metal bars with all my strength, staring with disbelief at the Felix's face, grey and twisted in a horrible grimace. And suddenly, as if he had felt my persistent, piercing glance, Felix opened his eyes and turned them towards me. They were dim and vacant but I knew he had recognised me. And I was sized with black despair since in one moment I understood that Felix was dying. This expression of his eyes... this silent farewell...I saw it before...  
  
I shuddered and looked at the bed. My friend was lying motionless, his glazy, dead eyes were fixed on the ceiling. His hands were still clenched on a crumpled sheet. The nuns crossed themselves and began to whisper prayers.  
  
I silently slipped out of the room and moved along the corridor like a sleepwaker, not even knowing where I was going. Suddenly the door of a laundry loomed in front of me and next to it a heap of dirty cloths. I slumped on the floor, buried myself in the rugs and finally I gave a loose to all my despair. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and together with them all plans and dreams were evaporating that we used to devise with Felix.  
  
I was alone again.  
  


*

The winter passed and the whole world seemed to come to life but I was still remaining in a strange stupor, indifferent to everything that was happening around me. It wasn't even despair. I wept all tears for Felix the night of his death and when I scrambled up from the heap of dirty cloths in the morning, my heart was empty and burnt with all feelings.  
  
Even the pranks of Arnie Giber were sliding off me like water and that made him only more furious. There wasn't a day he didn't play some nasty trick on me. And since I still seemed not to notice them, murderous twinkles were flickering in Arnie's brow eyes more and more frequently.  
  
On afternoon of May I was coming back from the school when suddenly someone sprang at me from behind, twisted my arms and crammed a dirty sack on my head. I heard a muffled laugher and a cold voice that I knew only too well whispered to my ear.  
  
'Wait, Tommy. Now I will read you a lesson you will remember to the end of your life.'  
  
Several hands grabbed my arms and legs and, still gurgling, Arnie's band carried me triumphantly towards the bay. After a few minutes I heard a silent ripple of water and an acrid smell of the rotten fishes reached my nose. We were obviously somewhere near the harbour.  
  
They threw me on the ground and somebody sat on my back, pressing my sack-covered head in the wet sand. I must have been Arnie himself since very close by I heard his voice, full of malicious satisfaction.  
  
'Well, little bastard,' he drawled with a false sweetness 'Finally at home.'  
  
He laughed nastily and so did the rest of his companions.  
  
'Show Tommy his mother's bed!' called Arnie.  
  
The hands grabbed me again and cast impetuously on something wet, slimy and stinking of fish. The band was roaring with laugher.  
  
'Comfortably, little bastard?' squeaked Simon Simpleton 'A pile of garbage is a splendid place for such a trash like you!'  
  
And suddenly I was overcome with rage, wild and uncontrollable. I was surprised myself. For the first time in my life I really wanted to kill. I was ready to assail Arnie and the rest and strangled them with my bare hands. I sprang to my feet but I slipped on the clammy garbage at once and fell on my back, raising another storm of laugher. I clenched my fits on the sticky grease and I cast two handfuls of it towards the voices. Judging by a roar of fury it hit Simon right in face.  
  
'You stinker!' he screamed shrilly 'I will...'  
  
But I have never found out what Simon had wanted to propose me because suddenly a hoarse, man's voice spoke from behind.  
  
'What on earth is going on here ?!'  
  
A deadly silence fell and then I heard turmoil and the whole band bolted.  
  
'Damned cowards!' a stranger shouted after them.  
  
I took off the sack from my head and looked curiously at the man. He was about sixty, had a straggly, grey hair and glasses with the metal rims. He was short and thin and his waxy skin resembled a yellowish parchment. It was difficult to believe that Arnie had been frightened of such a frail looking old man.  
  
I stood up and tried to get out of the heap of garbage but again my feet slipped each in different direction and I fell on my knees with a loud smack. The man turned away and looked at me with concern.  
  
'Be careful, boy' he said 'Wait, get hold of this.'  
  
He rose his black walking-stick and moved its tip towards me. I caught it and finally managed to get out of the stinking grease. I felt horribly. The rage has already evaporated from me leaving only shame and humiliation. I realised I must have been looking the very picture of misery.  
  
The stranger, however, seemed not to notice my state. His keen, green eyes were scanning my face but they expressed kindness and goodwill.  
  
'What did young Giber wanted with you?' he asked not taking his eyes off me; I jumped at the sound of the name 'Yes, I know this raw lad,' smiled the stranger interpreting my surprise properly 'His parents visit sometimes my bookshop. But their son opens the book only when he is forced to do it.'  
  
His eyes rested on a leather shabby bag that I had on my back all the time.  
  
'A colleague from school?' he asked.  
  
I nodded. I really appreciated his help but that moment I was dreaming only of one thing: to flee as fast as I could and wash out a crust of a sticky dirt. I was sure I was stinking awfully.  
  
The stranger looked at me and nodded.  
  
'I believe you would like to wash yourself before you come back home,' he said with sympathy and I asked myself a question whether this mysterious old man can read in mind 'My bookshop is on the embankment, five minutes walk from here. You can tidy yourself there.'  
  
And not even waiting for my answer he went towards the harbour. For a moment I was standing undecided, wondering whether not to flee in the opposite direction. But a vision of a way back to the orphanage in that state seemed loathsome enough to make me change my mind and follow the old man.  
  
A bookshop 'Golden Quill' didn't look impressively. It was a small room almost completely crammed with the high shelves full of books. In the air a smell of the old papers was hovering and another, strange aroma which source I couldn't place. Narrow door in the back part of the room led to a small flat of the stranger.  
  
When I washed out fish garbage of me and changed into the cloths that the old man had taken out from a large, wooden chest, he showed my a chair near the small table on which he was just putting cups and a kettle with a boiling water.  
  
'Sit down, boy' he smiled heartily to me and pointed at the chair once more since I was still staying in the doorway staring with amazement at two porcelain cups. 'We will have a cup of tea.'  
  
For the first time in my life somebody invited me for the afternoon tea. I was sitting at the table bewildered but in the same time burning shame and fear were rising in my heart. What will happen if that man finds out that I am a simple boy from the orphanage? He will chuck me out for sure. I felt an unpleasant cramp in my stomach at the very thought.  
  
But he was not going to ask me any question. Only when I was preparing to go out, muttering thanks for his help and hospitality, he looked intently at me and smiled slightly.  
  
'I'm glad I could help you, boy,' he said in his hoarse voice 'But you didn't tell me your name.'  
  
'Tom...' I stuttered out, blushing.  
  
The old man nodded, not taking his piercing eyes off me.  
  
'It's nice to meet you, Tom,' he said shaking my rigid hand 'My name is Elias Homer.'  
  


*

Several days later, instead of going back to the orphanage, I turned in the embankment and, not even knowing when, I found myself in front of the door of the bookshop 'Golden Quill'. I was standing near a small shop-window, reading the titles of the books put there, when the door opened and Elias Homer appeared, smiling.  
  
'Welcome, Tom' he said inviting me inside 'It's difficult to resist their charm, isn't it?' he pointed at the shelves full of books.  
  
I nodded, once more surprised at a great sagacity of the old man. He was right, it was an unfathomable variety of books that had attracted me to his shop like a magnet. Ever since I learnt reading I devoured every book that fell into my hands. And soon neither the orphanage nor the school could provide me with any new lecture. No wonder that the 'Golden Quill' became a real land of promise for me.  
  
Soon it became a custom that I visited the small bookshop twice a week and for several hours I concealed myself between the shelves, with every read book discovering new, unknown worlds and daydreaming the fascinating adventures of the heroes.  
  
Homer was happy about my passion and he personally looked for the lectures that I could enjoy. With the flushed cheeks I was following the fantastic voyages of Guliver, together with Robinson I was exploring, step by step, his solitary island, I was sailing on the raft with Huck Finn. Then I discovered Alexander Dumas and for half a year I was lost in the ups and downs of the musketeers and in the history of the French Revolution. I tasted a sweetness of vengeance enjoying the revenge of count Monte Christo. I read Goethe, Dostoievski, Tolstoj. And I still wanted more.  
  
Before long Elias Homer became the closest friend of mine. Several weeks after our first meeting I confessed with a shame that I lived in the orphanage. And that noble man not only didn't turn me out but he declared that his bookshop would be always opened for me. He also said something I remembered for many years:  
  
'Tom, it's not important whether you are a son of aristocrat or a poor orphan. It counts what you have in your head and in your heart. And what kind of human you are.'  
  
In future I were to doubt often the truth of these words. They were manifestation of a noble idealism and that's why there was so little place for them in the real world.  
  
Homer was more than a friend, he was a guardian, a mentor, a moral leader. In a way he was a parent to me, a parent I had never had. I could tell him about everything, about all my worries, problems and concerns. And he listened to me attentively and always managed to find the words full of courage and wisdom.  
  
Yes, Elias Homer was an extraordinary man. He opened my eyes to the world and formed my mind. But even he couldn't foresee the future...  
  


*

Summer of 1938 was dry and hot. The world shuddered in a tense foreboding of an imminent disaster. In April the Third Reich marched in Austria and it was commonly believed that Czechoslovakia would be the next victim. Many people said that the beginning of a war was hanging by thread. And that it would be a massacre nobody had ever dreamt about.  
  
Homer was full of anxiety and the worst misgivings. He though that one war in a man's life was still one too many. He was observing attentively the events on the arena of international politics and every day he was more and more gloomy. But he was also a humanist and I'm sure he believed at heart, even against any hope, that a reflection would come and the world would not plunge into a sea of blood.  
  
We were talking about all those alarming things one July night, sitting in the bookshop lit only by the light of a small oil lamp. It was sultry and stifling hot so we left the door opened. Homer sighed heavily and looked at me with his tired, sad eyes.  
  
'The worst crime a human can commit is to take away the life of another human. And they force the whole nations to do that...'  
  
We were sitting in silence, Homer cheerless and thoughtful while I was staring at him like at a source of wisdom. His every word was of great worth for me. I wanted be like him, I wanted to be a good, noble man...  
  
It grew late and Homer sent me home. I bade him good-night and left the bookshop, leaving the door opened as he had asked me to do. I was already on the street but, led by a strange impulse, I turned away once more and saw a profile of the old, tired man, bent over a large book. I was looking at him for several seconds, suddenly I realised it was growing later and without further delay I moved to the orphanage.  
  
Could I foresee that a moment after my leave a violent gust of wind, announcing the approach of a storm, would burst into the small bookshop and knock over the oil lamp standing on the table? That the lamp fell straight on a pile of the old, unique parchments that in a split second would burst into flames? That in a short time fire would spread to the shelves of books, turning the small room into a real hell?  
  
I couldn't. I couldn't. I know I couldn't. But the memory of that terrific night haunts me till today.  
  
I remember that I was already near the gate of the orphanage when I noticed that some people on the street were pointing intently at something in a district of the city I had just come from. I turned round and saw a red glow of the fire over the embankment. I don't know how but I was sure that the 'Golden Quill' was burning. It was the same terrible foreboding that made me run through the orphanage's corridors in the night of Felix's death. I stifled a moan of despair and dashed towards the harbour.  
  
The bookshop was in flames which resisted men' efforts to extinguish them with some fierce and stubborn fury. I pushed through the crowd of gaping spectators, ready to run straight into the mouth of fire, but a stout woman seized my arm.  
  
'Are you mad, child ?!' she cried terrified, clasping me stronger and stronger in response to my attempts to wrench myself free. 'What are you going to do? It's a hell!'  
  
'Where is Homer ?!' I yelled, staring widely around 'Where is Elias Homer !!!'  
  
The people standing close by looked unsteadily first at each other, than at me.  
  
'Did you know him?' asked a tall man with a tone of surprise in his voice.  
  
'Where is he ?!' I screamed with a growing despair.  
  
The people were still looking at me without a word. And though nobody said anything I saw the truth in their eyes.  
  
'Is he...is he dead?' I whispered in a strange voice.  
  
The man nodded with sorrow.  
  
'Unfortunately...' he said dryly 'They said he had been trying to save the books...'  
  
My legs bent over me and I fell to my knees. I wasn't crying, I wasn't screaming, I was only keeping still with my vacant eyes fixed on the dancing flames. I didn't feel anything: neither despair, nor rage, nor grief. I ceased to exist...  
  


*

Somebody had to lead me out of the crowd because when I came to my senses I was sitting on the cold sand with my face turned towards the dark waters of the bay. On the horizon purple flashes were cutting the sky.  
  
Homer... I turned away and fixed my eyes at the smoking ashes of the bookshop. It had burnt down completely. Ruthless fire consumed a valuable collection of books and something that was priceless for me: a life of my friend.  
  
I lied down on the sand and looked at the starry sky. I remembered the old stories about ancient gods who used to place on the firmament the mortals dear to them. Orion, Andromeda, Cassiopeia... If I had their power, three new constellations would appear on the night sky: Homer, Felix, Lopear.  
  
'No,' I thought 'I would like to have powers that would allow me to conquer death. Then I would make all my friends live till today. To know how to stop death, that is a real attribute of divinity.'  
  
A wind blew and the waves splashed on the shore. And only now I fully felt the whole vastness of a suffered loss. I realised that once more I had lost the only close person. And I was left alone again.  
  
'Why does it happen to me?' I was asking myself 'Why any time I became attached to somebody I have to lose him, sooner or later. Did the fate conspire against me ?! And maybe...' a thought that had entered my feverish mind was so horrible that I shuddered 'Maybe I am the one who draw misfortunes on the others? They die through ME!  
  
I sprang to my feet and pressed my hands to a flushed forehead. It was an explanation. I was an author of all those disasters. I was bringing death.  
  
I KILLED THEM ALL !  
  
I was shaking like in a fever, full of despair and hatred to myself. I was cursed! I didn't want to live any longer, I didn't want to cause a death of anybody else...  
  
I looked once more at the burnt bookshop and moved slowly towards the bay. I reached the shore, the waves washed my feet but I didn't stop. I was walking forward with determination, deeper and deeper. Water has already reached my knees, my waist, my neck... From behind I heard a noise as if something heavy had fallen into the water but it didn't matter to me any more. I closed my eyes and take the next step...  
  
Somebody's hand seized strongly my shoulder and pulled me back. I emerged to the surface, choking and spitting. A strange man muttered something softly and suddenly water around us wasn't water any more but a cloud of a white smoke, in the midst of which we reached the shore without any resistance from the matter.  
  
The stranger turned me gently towards him and looked at me with a deep concern in his piercing, light-blue eyes.  
  
'Mearlin's Beard! Tom!' he said reproachfully 'What did you want to do ?!'  
  



	2. Hogwart

2. Hogwart  
  
The name of the man who had save my young life was Albus Dumbledore.  
  
Was it a chance that brought him on the embankment that horrible night and linked our fates once for ever? Or maybe it was a sneer of destiny that I had survived thanks to the man I were to hate so much in future?  
  
But again I look too much ahead. Our paths have only crossed...  
  
After leading me out on the shore, he was watching me searchingly for several seconds and I believe he was talking to me, but I was still too much shocked by everything that had just happened to realise what was going on around. Despair, grief, memory of a deadly fear which seized me when the cold, dark water closed softly over my head, all in all it made me remain in a state of a total shock. I didn't know where I was, what was happening and what part the mysterious stranger played in it. A good many seconds had passed before I came to my senses just enough to be able to see him better.  
  
He was the most peculiar person I have ever met. He wore a long, dark-green robe of a strange fashion, resembling a bit a Roman toga. From underneath the robe's hem, trimmed with a golden thread, black boots with sharp, comically curved toe-caps were emerging. In his hand the man held, with a completely unknown purpose, a dozen centimetres long stick. If I add that he had long, auburn hair and the same bushy beard, a haircut rather unusual in pre-war England, it shouldn't surprise that in the first moment I wasn't sure whether it was a dream or reality. It even crossed my mind that I had died and here I was staying face to face with a guardian of the other world (I knew by heart all tales about the eternal happiness that was in store for the well-behaved children, but since I started to think independently I ceased to believe in them), but I rejected quickly this hypothesis as a complete absurd. And meanwhile the man, as if he was aware perfectly well of all my unspoken questions, was watching me intently over the rims his half-moon spectacles.  
  
'No, Tom, it's not a dream,' he said gently 'though I believe that you would prefer it was. I know how painful is a loss of somebody dear. But live must go on...' he sighed heavily and a grief twinkled in his eyes as if those words awakened in him some painful memories.  
  
'It was my fault he died ...' I whispered more to myself than to him.  
  
Dumbledore roused himself from musings and looked squarely in my eyes. I had a strange, prickly feeling on my back.  
  
'No, Tom, you are not responsible for a death of Elias Homer.' he said slowly, not taking his gaze off my face 'Nor for a death of Felix.' he added softly and his blue eyes flashed.  
  
I gasped in amazement. How did he know...  
  
Dumbledore rubbed his forehead ad looked at me with concern.  
  
'Forgive me, Tom, I peeped for a moment into your memory. I wanted to understand you better' he added in a tone of excuse.  
  
If I was surprised a while ago, now I felt completely confused. What did he mean by saying: 'I peeped into your memory'?  
  
'I prefer not to think what could happen if I hadn't my own things to settle here,' said Dumbledore shaking his head 'I thought that I could take the opportunity to deliver you a letter from Hogwart...and now I see it was one of the best ideas which had ever entered my head.'  
  
Through the curtain of shock and bewilderment I understood only one word.  
  
'A letter...?' I repeated mechanically though I was quite sure that on the whole world there was not a single person who could write to me.  
  
Dumbledore smiled slightly, for the first time that evening, and took a large, yellow envelope out of his pocket. I fixed my astounded gaze on it. With big, black letters a name was written there: _'Tom Marvolo Riddle'_. I couldn't believe my eyes. The letter was addressed to me!  
  
'Tom, the time has come you know the true.' said Dumbledore solemnly and handed the envelope to me.  
  
Once more I cast a disbelieving glance at my name and surname and I quickly turned away the letter to read its sender. And next moment I almost fainted since a black, carefully calligraphed inscription said: _'Hogwart School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'_.  
  
Several seconds had passed before I fully understood the meaning of those words. I was staring at them with the vacant eyes, wondering inwardly whether I went mad or whether somebody was poking fun at me. I looked at the man who, as a deliverer of the letter, I could suspect first of all, but his face expressed only seriousness and deep-felt kindness.  
  
'What...what dose it mean?' I whispered, trying to control my stiffened tongue.  
  
And then Albus Dumbledore informed me of something that was to change completely my whole live. 'Tom,' he said solemnly 'You are a wizard.'  
  


*

I was wondering many times when I really understood that everything Albus Dumbledore had told me about that night wasn't a fiction of a madman but the truest truth. Was it when he dried my wet clothes with a single movement of his stick (or rather, as I was going to know soon, his 'wand')? Or when, after escorting me to the gate of the orphanage, he disappeared suddenly as if he dissolved in the sultry air?  
  
No... When I woke up next morning I was deeply convinced that I had simply a strange and horrible dream. And only a streak of soot on my cheek mad me realise that the bookshop had really burnt down, that Homer had really died and that I had been really ...  
  
'A wizard?' I whispered with disbelief.  
  
When uttered, the word sounded much more peculiar and absurdly than when I was repeating it in my mind. I shook my head with disapproval for myself. It was a pack of rubbish!  
  
And yet... Several days later, during the breakfast, a large grey owl flew into the dinning-room through the opened window. It passed over the rows of the risen heads with a silent rustle of the wings and, after landing on the table just near me, it put a small, white envelope in my palm.  
  
I was staring at it for a while as if it was nothing less than a hundred pounds note. I hadn't the slightest idea what it meant. I kept, however, enough sense to hide the letter into my pocket when I noticed a band of teenagers, stealing up towards my with the smiles that didn't presage well for my mysterious correspondence. In the same time the nuns were also running in my direction, disturbed by my collusion with the large, grey owl.  
  
So I did the only thing that seemed reasonable in that moment. I started up and rushed out of the dining-room, pursued by angry shouts of the nuns and furious howling of the teenagers' band. I hadn't stopped as long as I reached the shore of the bay. I hid myself under a heap of fishing-nets lying on the deck of an old boat and I carefully took out the letter. And next moment I gasped with amazement. The sender was Albus Dumbledore.  
  
I tore open an envelope impatiently and glanced over the lines of a very laconic text.  
  
_'Tom, the school covers the costs of your books and all equipment. I'm expecting you at Trafalgar Square, London on August 31st, at twelve o'clock. Albus Dumbledore.'_  
  
As I was reading my eyes were growing wider and wider with surprise. School, books, equipment... The words were spinning before my eyes in a swirling dance. I reached into the other pocket and pulled out a crumpled, yellow envelop which I had got from Dumbledore the day of our first meeting. Inside there were two pieces of parchment. The first one informed me that since September I was going to begin studies in the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The second one contained a list of books and a surprising set of objects (robes, cauldron and herbs didn't sound the most oddly, compared with a wand or a pair of protective gloves of dragon skin) which were needed in Hogwart. I read the list several times and then I looked at the message from Dumbledore. I began to understand what he meant by the equipment. However, it didn't change the fact that it was still hard to believe that anything of that all could have the slightest connection with reality.  
  
So I was extremely astounded when, after coming back to orphanage, I was called to the office of strict, wrinkled mother Constance who informed me, not even trying to mask her disbelief, that I had been admitted to the boarding-school. As a proof, which were to convince more her than me, she showed me a letter from the headmaster of the school. I recognised a careful, nice handwriting of professor Armando Dippet who informed that an orphan boy from Liverpool had been included among the students of Hogwart. I read the letter very carefully but I didn't find the slightest mention about the magic.  
  
And so in the evening on Agust 30th I got on a third-class car of a night train to London, clasping a small bundle with all my belongings. Even then I still didn't believe in all those stories about magic and wizards but when the engine whistled and the train moved, my heart was brimming over with joy and hope. Whatever was waiting for me in the new live I was just beginning, it couldn't be anything worse than my gloom existence in the orphanage.  
  


*

Twenty four hours later I had no more doubts that the magic world was something real. I was sitting in a small room of the hotel _'Morpheus Bed'_ which windows were looking straight on the Diagon Alley. Though it was quite late, it was still full of the murmur of voices. And it wouldn't be anything extraordinary, if not the fact that it was not the common London's street but the main promenade of the most magical part of the capital, where only witches and wizards were allowed to enter.  
  
For the tenth time this evening I began to look systematically through my equipment which we had been buying with Dumbledore for the whole day in different shops at the Diagon Alley. I read once more titles of the school-books; some of them, like 'Herbology', were funny, the others like 'Potions' or 'Charms' enigmatic, and finally the others, like 'Transfiguration', completely obscure. I carefully put aside a set of the glass vessels which, as I could guess, were used to prepare the mixtures, and I reached for an object that had fascinated me since the moment I had taken it into my hands. It was a wand, thirteen and half inches long, made of yew and containing a single feather of a phoenix. I was examining with admiration its smooth, black surface reflecting, like a mirror, flickering flames of the candles. And anytime I clenched my fingers on the cold handle I had a strange feeling, almost a conviction, that I and this wand had been created for each other; that I would achieve great deeds with it...  
  
Later that evening Dumbledore told me about the new world I was entering and I knew nothing about. I learned many about Hogwart, the only school of magic in England, where, by the way, Dumbledore was a teacher. I knew the name of the present Minister of Magic, the most important person in the wizarding world. I heard with amazement the complicated rules of Quidditch, a kind of sport that exited the witches and wizards like a football the common people.  
  
Dumbledore told me also something else, something that sank into my memory for a long time, though it had to pass many years before I really understood its meaning.  
  
'Tom,' he said seriously 'You must know that magic is not a human invention. It existed long before the first homo sapiens appeared on the Earth. One can say it is a kind of a hidden power, or better a form of energy contained in everything around us, both in the living creatures and in the ordinary matter. If you are able to control it you can perform deeds which are believed to be impossible among the common people. That is what you will learn at Hogwart.'  
  
I looked at my hands, expecting subconsciously that I would see them radiating a subtle glimmer. But they were still the normal hands of an eleven-years-old boy. I lifted my eyes up to Dumbledore.  
  
'But...why me?' I asked quietly.  
  
The wizard fell to thinking.  
  
'You see, an ability to sense the magic is a natural feature of any living creature, and so of a human. It allowed him to live in unity with the nature, not as a master of the world but as its integral part. However, as the civilization was developing and the human's domination was increasing, the magical perception began to diminish, though, of course, it didn't disappear completely. Every person is born with that ability but among the non-magical people, who we call the Muggles, it's just very, very weak.'  
  
'So where do the people like you arise from... the wizards?' I asked.  
  
'Good question' smiled Dumbledore. 'But the answer is simple. It's just a statistic. In every large population individuals occur who can have a certain feature much stronger than the others have. That is also the case of the magical perception. There exists a group of people who are able to use it. What is more, it's genetically transmitted to the next generations and that's why there are whole wizarding families. But it can also happen that a strong magical perception occurs with a child of Muggle parents. Well, it's genetics too.'  
  
'And it was my case?' I stated more than asked.  
  
Dumbledore looked at me piercingly and shook his head.  
  
'No, Tom,' he said slowly 'In your case a mechanism of heirdom acted.' and noticing my surprised gaze he added in a solemn voice 'Your mother was a witch.'  
  


*

I was lying on a bed, staring at the darkness. Midnight has already passed long time ago but I still haven't slept a wink. Too much happened today, too many rare things I heard for I could now easily fall asleep...  
  
Finally I knew who I really was. Me, Tom Marvolo Riddle, the only son of Felicia and Tom Riddles, a witch and a Muggle. I clenched my fists at the very thought of my father. A truth, which I so keenly had desired to know for so many years, now appeared in the whole cruel form. It was his fault that I had spent my childhood in the orphanage. It was him who I owed to those eleven gloomy years that for me were the unceasing series of sufferings and misery, a dark, stuffy tunnel, rarely lightened up with the bright rays of happiness.  
  
My heart was brimming over with a grudge and bitterness. My own father renounced me, only because he was afraid that I would be the same that his wife had turned out to be: a wizard. He abandoned her, pregnant, and doomed for a lonely wandering amongst cold and blizzard. I think he wouldn't have qualms of conscience if I also died that January night.  
  
But I survived. I survived to hate him and wait for the day when my vengeance would reach him.  
  
Elias Homer told me once: 'Remember, Tom, do not hide rancour and grudge in your heart. These are false counsellors, they will destroy not only the one against who you summoned them, but also you. Learn how to forgive and you will gain the biggest victory.'  
  
In the past I wanted to believe in everything that Homer believed in and share his philosophy of life...  
  
But now he was dead.  
  


*

I was in Hogwart.  
  
I was standing, together with a group of the other first-years, in an illuminated hall of a great castle, which tremendous walls and forest of spiry towers I had been observing with bated breath on my way from the station. Now we were waiting only for a signal of a wizard (who was nobody else but Albus Dumbledore) to enter the Great Hall, where the welcome feast was about to begin.  
  
Massive door drew aside noiselessly and I entered the biggest room I had ever seen. In the middle there were four long tables at which hundreds of students were sitting, wearing strange, black robes and pointed hats (identical to my own which I still couldn't get used to). High ceiling was dark as a night sky and dotted with stars, but the hall was plunged in a flood of warm, bright light.  
  
Dumbledore led us towards the fifth table, standing perpendicularly to the others. A dozen or so women and men at different age were sitting there and I identified them, rightly, as the teachers. The oldest of them, and undoubtedly the most stately, was a balding wizard, sitting in a great, throne-like armchair in the middle of the table. Though frail and of short stature, he emanated a great authority and dignity. He was Armando Dippet, the Headmaster of Hogwart.  
  
I was so absorbed in the scores of new impressions that before I even had time to ask myself a question: why did they gather us in the middle of the hall, the answer, in the form of a large, ragged hat appeared in front of me on a three-legged stool.  
  
'Let's start the Sorting Ceremony!' said Dippet solemnly.  
  
The Hat quivered and, to my inexpressible amazement, it began to sing. It was so surprising for me (I had never seen before that any piece of clothing could emit a sound, not to mention singing) that I didn't pay attention to the words of the song. When the unusual soloist has finally ceased humming, Dumbledore unfolded a long roll of parchment and started to read the names of the students who, one by one, approached the stool and put on a Hat. And this one, at once or after a while of reflection, directed a first-year to one of the four Hogwart Houses.  
  
I was just wondering by what principle the Hat was sorting the students, when a dark-haired boy with a hooked nose and a wide mouth, puffed-up in a supercilious grimace, pushed me aside and marched towards the stool before even Dumbledore read:  
  
'Perseus Potter!'  
  
The boy put on a Hat vigorously and assumed a pose of a bored expectation for a result well known in advance. And sure enough, the Hat didn't have to think long and before five seconds passed it shouted:  
  
'Gryffindor!'  
  
Perseus Potter rose from the stool with a truly monarchal dignity, bowed to Dippet and marched towards one of the four tables, with his head hold superciliously high and not honouring the others first-years with a single glance. The Gryffindors greeted a new student with a storm of applause. Potter nodded them shortly and sat at the table with a slightly scoffing expression on his face.  
  
Dumbledore read the next name.  
  
'Tom Riddle!'  
  
Approaching the stool, I hadn't a specified wish of belonging to any definite house. I knew about them only what Dumbledore had told me yesterday evening. Each of them has been established by one of the Hogwart founders and in each the virtues were priced, which had been considered by a founder for being the most desired with a budding wizard. When I asked, which house was the best, Dumbledore smiled and said that these were students who decided about the value of the houses. During hundreds of years of the school's history, each of them has already released many famous witched and wizards. The Headmaster Dippet used to belong to the Hufflepuff and Dumbledore himself to the Ravenclaw.  
  
When I put the Hat on my head, it was silent for a while and then began to emit different 'Hmm' and 'Ooh', an obvious evidence of some great problem I had caused him with my person.  
  
'Well...' he said finally in a more articulate way 'You are a riddle for me, my boy. I really do not know which house should I sort you to. It has never occured to me before...' he sighed heavily with a tone of reproof for itself and again started to emit the sounds of a deep frustration 'Let's think it over again,' he said thoughtfully 'He is clever, oh yes, very clever and talented... It would classify him to the Ravenclaw. But he is also tenacious and hard-working, he will not get discouraged by thickness of the books he will have to struggle through in search of the knowledge...and these are features of a typical Hufflepuff. Hmm...' it muttered 'Yes, I can see a courage here ...oh yes, he will not retreat, will not take fright face to face with a danger. So maybe Gryffindor?' it asked itself hopefully 'Yes, it wouldn't be a bad solution, if he wasn't so awfully ambitious. He wants to be better than the others, wants to show what he could do...and he can do much. And who priced such features more than Slytherin? Hmm... A difficult decision...' it gasped with a growing despair 'Difficult... But when the mind fails, one has to relay on intuition. And it tells me that this boy belongs to...'  
  
I held my breath...  
  
'Slytherin!'  
  


*

From the first day of school it became evident that I had a great talent. I was surprised myself by the fact that I had no difficulty in learning subjects, I met with for the first time in my life. I left far behind the rest of my classmates and since a goodly part of them descended from the famous wizarding families, one could expect that they had sucked in the magic with their mothers' milk. But it was I, a half-Muggle from an orphanage, who got the name of one of the most clever and witty students who had ever come to Hogwart.  
  
Teachers were delighted with me; I say even more, they admired me. And no wonder. I was not only talented but also a model student. Polite, well-mannered, I always behaved with a due respect towards the teachers. I have never broken any school rule, I didn't have rows with the colleagues. Contrary, during the quarrels I took on a role of a mediator and I must say that I always managed to restrain fiery temperaments of the opponents.  
  
Among all the subjects taught in Hogwart my favourite one was Transfiguration, lectured by Albus Dumbledore. A difficult art of transforming one object into another has fascinated me since the very first lesson, when Dumbledore turned a fine, batiste handkerchief into a colourful butterfly with a single wave of his wand.  
  
I must say, without a false modesty, that my swift progress in the art of transfiguration aroused amazement even in Dumbledore, who was commonly believed to be the greatest talent in this field. In two months I mastered a transformation of a quill into a steel blade of a knife, which task crowned a year of study in the first class. Intrigued Dumbledore invented more and more difficult exercises, but for me it was not enough only to wave my wand mechanically with the suitable incantations. I wanted to understand the very mechanism of transfiguration. When I had presented my request to Dumbledore he frowned and looked on me searchingly, as if he was trying to estimate my real power.  
  
'Well, Tom' he said finally 'I'm not going to conceal that a theory of transfiguration belongs to the most difficult issues that a wizard studying magic can face. In Hogwart we don't teach it at all, restricting ourselves only to the practical applications of transfiguration, which are quite enough for an ordinary use. In this aspect, however, transfiguration is a purely imitative art; to perform a definite change one must know a formula. So you are not able to transform whichever pair of objects. Only knowledge of a full theory allows to elaborate independently completely new spells and changes related with them. Yes,' he nodded 'transfiguration is a very interesting and still developing field of science. But also extremely difficult,' he added significantly giving me a serious glance.  
  
'I'd like to learn it!' I declared enthusiastically, absolutely undeterred by the last comment of Dumbledore.  
  
And so I began long and arduous studies, which in the future...but no, don't lest us anticipate events.  
  
I liked Potions, too. Just as Transfiguration, it was a typical exact science, logical and consistent. And it made me no difficulty, either. I quickly convinced myself that it's not a great challenge to prepare even a very complicated and complex mixture, if only to start doing it after a good theoretical introduction and carrying out instructions carefully and with concentration. In my opinion, mean effects of my classmates resulted from their carelessness and lack of understanding for a beauty of potions' art, which they considered as something between a pharmacy and a course of cooking.  
  
It is also difficult not to mention the Charms' lessons, lectured by professor Glamour, a witch pretty young and very friendly. Since I could perform perfectly every spell presented during the classes at one go, I quickly became the apple of her eye and the model for the other students. Professor Glamour didn't want me to be bored while the rest of the class was toiling at the most primitive charms, so she found for me different magical curiosities: little known spells and situational variants of the basic charms. And I really enjoyed myself with them.  
  
There were, however, also taught subjects which I myself considered dull and completely useless. I could still tolerate Herbology, though I would feel satisfied enough knowing only the magical properties of plants, without caring for them personally and smearing my hands in a wet soil. But the Care of the Magical Creatures was a mere waist of time and some kind of hypocrisy. After the class of Potions I realised perfectly well that most of the wizards dealt with the magical creatures only when they were already dead, using their blood and organs to make mixtures and the protecting cloths. So the word "care" rouses in that context a bitter smile.  
  
On the other hand, such subjects as Divination and Astrology put me in a real rage. I couldn't understand why a wizard as eminent as Armando Dippet made us learn such rubbish. Revealing the future from a crystal sphere, observing the stars in order to find information about the man's fate - for me they were all pseudo-sciences and bluff. I didn't believe in predictions, I didn't believe in prophecies. I believed only in a power of a pure mind.  
  


*

In those days the Dark Arts were a field of magic not very popular and relatively little known, remaining beyond the main trend of interest for the majority of wizards, in the background of a briskly developing transfiguration. Few who decided to dedicate themselves to the Dark Arts, usually gave up after several years, frustrated and discouraged with a lack of the actual results, if only earlier they hadn't lost their lives in an unsuccessful attempt to perform a complicated dark curse. I think they were just lacking a real talent.  
  
I started my studies at Hogwart a century after a death of the last great Dark Witch, Isabel de la Sangre, who became famous as an author of the most bloody massacre in the history of parliamentarism, killing with one curse 559 members of the Iberian Warlocks Council. Since that time, however, neither witch nor wizard has appeared who could compare with Isabel's terrible fame. And hence many people believed that the Dark Arts had already used up all their ominous potential and there was no point to deal with them any longer.  
  
An advocate of such a view was Armando Dippet. At the time of his headmastership, the Dark Arts weren't even mentioned in Hogwart. For the arguments of the opponents of such a policy, among them Dumbledore, who pointed the fact that the Dark Arts included not only cruel curses but also a whole range of other dangers, in most cases even not connected with the human activity, that every witch and wizard should be able to deal with, he answered that the one who had never seen the night sky wouldn't dream about reaching the stars.  
  
Several years later the discussion was to flare up again and change once for ever an attitude of the magical community to the Dark Arts and those who dealt with them. But I will tell about it later on.  
  


*

To enter the magical world was for me as to be born again. The orphanage was only a bad, gloomy dream and my real life was here, at Hogwart. I found a passion that gave sense to my whole existence and for the first time made me looking cheerfully in the future, full of optimism and conviction that my cursed fate had finally changed.  
  
I'm not going to conceal how much, as a result of spectacular magical successes I achieved every day, my self-confidence and faith in my own strength increased. Finally, for the first time in my live, I felt as somebody really exceptional and, to tell the truth, better than the others. It was a feeling I have never experienced before. In mother's Ulrica school I was also one of the best students but in those days everybody saw me only as a poor boy from the orphanage. And they treated me according to such a shabby descent.  
  
Only at Hogwart I have been appreciated for what I had achieved and not for who I was. Here it wasn't important whether I grew up in a palace or in a mean hut. And I naively believed that the magic world was an idealistic utopia, that Elias Homer have been looking for all his live and which main motto was: _the most important is to be a real Human _.  
  
I felt free and happy. I thought that the dreary demons of my childhood had been defeated and destroyed forever. I didn't expect they just hid themselves in the shadow of my euphoria, ready to attack again any moment and stick the icy claws of grudge and bitterness straight into my heart.  
  


*

Perseus Potter, grandson of the former Minister of Magic, son of the present-day president of the British Warlock Council, for everyone considered to be a continuator of a glorious family traditions on the highest ministerial levels, expected, as the most natural thing, that he would be the brightest star in Hogwart.  
  
And in fact, before a month he became an undeniable leader of the Gryffindor and, though it can seem incredible, he had a following even among the seven-years. The teachers liked him and he could use it perfectly well. No other student could indulge as much as Perseus Potter. When it came to a row with the other students, usually caused by Potter himself, he always was innocent and with the fire of indignation in his eyes he demanded to punish severely the ones who had dared to rise their wands at him. Even ten witnesses who swore that they had seen Potter, attacking the other student, was not enough to overweigh his word on the scale of a teachers' justice.  
  
Of course, that only increased his inborn arrogance and confirmed his conviction that all over the world there was no other human being as perfect as Perseus Potter. But, sooner or later, an alarming discovery had to penetrate through that thick armour of conceit and cock-sureness. A discovery, that there is somebody else in Hogwart, whose talent and abilities could before long eclipsed his own fame.  
  
The one was Tom Riddle.  
  


*

It was Perseus Potter who brutally brought me back to reality and made me realise that the magical world didn't differ at all from the Muggles' one, full of envy and meanness, which I had left with such relief.  
  
It was a cloudy, rainy day in the end of November. I was sitting in the Great Hall, cutting a pork chop with one hand while with the other turning over the pages of my Potions textbook. Absorbed in lecture, I didn't hear that somebody approached the table and sat next to me on a wooden bench.  
  
'It's so pitiful,' a sneering voice hissed 'That dirty Mudblood from an orphanage couldn't even afford to buy his own books.'  
  
Several seconds had passed before I realised that those words were aimed at me. I rose my head and looked straight into the eyes of Perseus Potter, now full of dislike and contempt.  
  
'And what are you staring at, Mudblood ?' he barked through the clenched teeth 'Rubbish like you should behave with more respect towards the pure-blood wizards.'  
  
I was looking at him dumbfounded. I didn't know what the word he had called me meant, but judging by his sneering smile it must have been something very insulting.  
  
Perseus Potter leant towards me and, not taking his burning eyes off my face, he whispered sinisterly:  
  
'You think you can show off at Hogwart with a risen head ? You are wrong, Riddle. You are nobody ! You are lousy, Muggle bastard and I still wonder why Dippet let you study in that castle. But if you are already here, you must know your place. Remember it well, Riddle: what is really valued is a pure blood ! No matter how the teachers admire you; for me you will always remain a dirty Mudblood.'  
  
And he walked away, leaving me entirely shocked.  
  
That was how I found out that the magical world was not so perfect as I had imagined and that some people believed to be better than the others only because of their origin.  
  
Mudblood is an insulting name of a witch or wizard who was Muggle-born.   
  



	3. Slytherin

3. Slytherin   
  
I would lie if I claim that all wizarding community shared Peresus Potter's opinion about the purity of blood.  
  
Times had already passed when the Muggle children, gifted with the magical abilities, were commonly accounted to be the second class citizens and in the social hierarchy were measured up to the goblins and the giants. In the middle of the XX-th century, law guaranteed the equality of rights of all the wizards, regardless of their origin (and also sex, skin colour or other attributes that for the ages have divided people into better and worse), and the best examples were me and the other Muggle born students, who could study in the schools of witchcraft together with the pure-blood ones.  
  
Officially, no one dared to question the rightness of such a policy. On the other hand, it wasn't secret that old wizarding families, often boasted of the several hundreds years tradition, were very malevolent towards diffusion of the magical abilities into the Muggle world. Many of them, though of course not everybody, believed that magic in the hands of the Mudbloods is simply a profanation of the ancient art, which deserved only a chosen few. Things came to such a point that the members of those families married only within their caste, and any attempts of breaking out of that unwritten duty usually resulted in a disinheritance of such a black sheep and in breaking off all relations with him (or her).  
  
This prejudice against the Muggle-born wizards resulted from the conviction that people, who didn't have magical abilities were, in general, less intelligent and, subsequently, worse than the ones whose magical perception was strong. An origin of such a view should be placed in the ancient times, when the development of civilisation was much less advanced then the development of magic. The wizards could easily take control over the mass of primitive Muggles, usually under the pretence of the invented worships and religions. But with the progress of human knowledge and technology the wizards lost their dominant position and the two worlds: magical and the one of the Muggles, separated. Since that time each one has been developing independently and their inter-dependence was minimal. In the XX-th century most of the pure blood wizards had no idea about the achievements of the modern physics and chemistry but they still believed that THEY were the most perfect human beings. They despised Muggles and considered them as the lower kind of people. That's why it was so difficult for them to accept the fact that the Mudbloods often had greater talent than the heirs of the old, wizarding families.  
  
Entering into the world of magic I didn't even suspect I would find here so many xenophobia and hidden racism.  
  


*

It was a point of honour for Perseus Potter to remind me as often as possible that for him I was an absolute zero. Every day he aimed some vicious and scornful remark at me, usually referring to my poverty and the fact that I had grown up in the orphanage. And when he was sure that no one else could hear him, in a venomous voice he called Mudblood and dirty half-breed. On such occasions his dark eyes were gleaming with a pure hatred.  
  
Yes, there is no doubt that the main goal of Perseus Potter, devoured by envy and helpless fury anytime I was better than him during the lessons, was to make my life in Hogwart as unbearable as deep was his morbid antipathy.  
  
And me ? Well, I simply tried not to pay attention to Potter's blustering. Years of teasing, first in the orphanage, then it the Public School, armed me in a thick armour of indifference and distance towards what the people were saying about me. When the shock had passed after my first conversation with Potter, that had ruined once forever my illusions and naive faith in the perfection of the magical world, I started to treat him as if he didn't exist. With a cool insensibility I endured even the most mean and insulting comments that his wretched intellect, obsessively focused on this one goal, had managed to produce.  
  
And yet, though I didn't show any emotions, Potter's words hurt me, the deeper, the more I tried to pretend that I didn't care about them. I kept silent but every insult burnt its stinging mark in my heart and memory.  
  
But that was what Perseus Potter didn't know and he was bridling up because of my indifference and coolness. However, he remained hopeful that one day he would succeed in putting me out of patience and he would fully enjoy a divine taste of vengeance.  
  
Next possibility occurred to him in the middle of May. The day was sunny and warm so the students left the castle and dispersed over the green lawns. I sat at the lakeside, put a Transfiguration textbook in front of me and I completely lost myself in reading.  
  
Suddenly a shadow fell on the pages. I turned away surprised and I saw Perseus Potter. He was alone, he was standing several steps from me and was looking at me with an expression that was usually reserved for something particularly hideous and disgusting. As we were eyeing each other, a very nasty and vicious smile appeared on his thick lips.  
  
'Riddle,' he drawled venomously 'It's rather fortunate that I see you, I just wanted to ask you a question. As an expert...' he chuckled softly 'Is that true that the Muggle orphanage doesn't differ from a pigsty ? Come on, tell me, Riddle' he moved closer and poked my shoulder 'I heard you were all kept in one great hall where you slept, eat and shitted.'  
  
I clenched my teeth, with all my strength trying to control the rage that was growing in me. Potter was observing me with a sneering grimace.  
  
'I heard that in the orphanage you gobbled form the floor. My! ' he shook with laugher 'You must look like pigs then ! Like Muggle pigs !'  
  
I clenched my fists. I was looking at the wildly chortling boy and I felt an irresistible temptation to change his empty, puffed up head into a shapely pumpkin with a single wave of my wand (it was a curse I'd learnt recently). Vision of Potter, walking through the Hogwart with a great vegetable on his shoulders, seemed so amusing that I started to goggle myself. I was just reaching for my wand when suddenly someone shouted on the other side of the lake. It brought me round. Potter stopped laughing too and looked at me with a new dose of hatred.  
  
'Come on, Riddle,' he hissed 'Tell the truth; did you gobble from the floor?'  
  
I shrugged my shoulders and I stepped forward to pass him but then he sprang at me and knocked me down to the ground.  
  
'Show me how you ate, pig !' he shrieked, trying to press my head to the grass.  
  
He was taller and stronger than me and it gave him a goodly advantage. Though I was struggling with a fierceness of an encircled dragon, I couldn't wrench myself free.  
  
'Mug to the ground, Mudblood!' howled Potter triumphantly 'You must lie just like that when you are talking with a pure-blood wizard!'  
  
I succeeded in freeing one hand. I tried to reach my pocket but it wasn't easy. Finally my fingers tightened on the black handle of the wand...  
  
'POTTER !!!'  
  
At the sound of that voice we both came to a standstill. I felt the hands, which had pressed me to the ground, moved back rapidly. I rose my head.  
  
Blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore, fixed on Perseus Potter, were burning with indignation.  
  
'You disappointed me, boy,' he said coldly 'You are a disgrace for your family name. Go back to the castle. In an hour you will report in the Headmaster's office.'  
  
For the first time in his Hogwart career Potter didn't even try to protest. Without a word of comment, with downcast eyes, he moved humbly towards the school.  
  
Bright, piercing glance of Dumbledore rested on me. I was shaking with rage and humiliation, not able to stifle any longer the bitterness rising in me.  
  
'WHY does it happen?!' I cried, giving a loose to all the rancour that had gathered in my heart for many years; at the same time I fixed my burning eyes at Dumbledore as if I expected that he was the one who should answer me 'Why do always such wretched skunks as Arnie Giber and Perseus Potter consider themselves better than me? It's not fair !' I stamped my foot 'Is that my fault that I'm a Muggle orphan?! I would give a lot to change it. But I am who I am. THEY are the ones who are not fit to hold a candle to me ! They have no right to treat me like that !'  
  
Hatred overcame me completely. I have no doubt that if in that moment anyone put in front of me all the authors of my sufferings, beginning from the damned Muggle who was my father and finishing at that wretched pure-blood idiot, nothing would stop me from dispensing them justice; my own justice, which in that moment provided only one, capital punishment...  
  
Some of those feelings must have appeared on my face, because for the first time since I had known him, Dumbledore looked at me with apprehension and some strange sadness.  
  
'Tom, I'm really sorry that it happened,' he sighed 'Potter had passed all bounds. But, please, don't judge all community only on the ground of behaviour of one envious raw lad. He doesn't like you and he says whatever comes upon his mouths only to tease you. But it doesn't mean that everybody shares such opinions. Other students always treat you very kindly.'  
  
'It's easy to say...' I muttered bitterly 'But YOU weren't called bastard or dirty Mudblood for all your life. I endured it so long...but now I have enough of it. Simply enough.'  
  
Dumbledore was looking at me concentrated, as if he was about to take a very important decision.  
  
'Tom,' he said finally in a firm voice 'I was wondering when I should tell you that. And, to tell the truth, I was going to wait several more years, till you finish the school and begin independent life. But now I see it will be better if you know all at once.'  
  
'All...?' I repeated unsteadily, feeling again like that eventful night when I had heard that I had been a wizard 'But about what?'  
  
Dumbledore's blue eyes flared up.  
  
'Tom,' he said slowly, stressing every word 'You are, in a straight line, a last heir of great Salazar Slytherin.'  
  


*

For several following days I was living like in a dream, absolutely unaware what was going around. If somebody asked me what I had been doing then, I wouldn't be able to answer. I only know that during the Charms lesson I made my classmate crying, absent-mindedly diminishing her nates instead of her nose (*). Moreover, a mixture I had prepared during Potions looked more like thick mud than a volatile, phosphorescent liquid, the Regeneration Solution should have been. The teachers looked at me in amazement and I was wandering about the classrooms and corridors as a sleepwalker, with a distant and vacant gaze.  
  
Only one thought was burning in my feverish mind: I am a heir of Slytherin ! I descend from the most splendid wizarding family ever! All Hogwart students knew by heart the story of four founders of the school and they knew perfectly well that Salazar Slytherin was the most powerful and the most esteemed among them. Many considered him to be the most eminent wizard in history and even in my times an opinion prevailed that no one had been born who could compare with him in knowledge and talent.  
  
It wasn't mentioned, however, that Salazar Slytherin was the most prominent advocate of a pure blood politics ad he had began a campaign against the Muggle-born wizards. Why did they conceal that fact? Well, for centuries the name of Slytherin was a too powerful weapon in the hands of the equal rights' opponents.  
  
But I haven't known it yet. For me and for the other students, Slytherin was almost a myth, a symbol of a deep wisdom and an unimaginable power. Who of us, belonging to his house, in the secrecy of heart didn't dream about being like him?  
  
Therefore it shouldn't be surprise that the fact, that a blood of famous Salazar run in my veins, made such an impression on me. It was the next great turning-point in my life and, from the point of view of passing years, I can say that the one of the most important.  
  


*

In those days I was living in a state of a strange intoxication that was something more than happiness: it was euphoria, pride and a deep faith that finally fate looked at me more graciously and rewarded all wrongs I had suffered in my life.  
  
I have never felt so wonderful before. I - an orphan, Mudblood, despised by Muggles and by many wizards only for who I had been born - descended from a house, which was the highest aristocracy in the magical world. It ennobled me in my own eyes and caused that I completely stopped to care whether the arrogant imbeciles of Potter sort call me a Muggle pig or not. I believe it was Dumbledore's guiding principle when he had decided to reveal the truth to me.  
  
I cannot deny, however, that in a glory of my famous ancestor my own ego started to shoot up, making me more and more delighted with myself. And it was something that Dumbledore didn't want to happen, though I'm sure he was prepared for such results of enlightening me on who I really was.  
  
'Tom,' he said me that day when we were going back to the castle; I was walking stiffly, flabbergasted with everything I had just heard 'I hope I didn't act too eagerly. I realise that such knowledge can be too heavy burden for such a young man. I trust you, however, and I hope you will assume a sensible attitude towards it. In plain words, I don't want the fact, that you are Slytherin's heir, turn your head.'  
  
Well, I think I disappointed him...at least in the beginning. I became bumptious and began to look down on the other students. There was only one thing left to make my triumph complete. I was dying to tell the whole world that Tom Riddle, a half-Muggle is a descendant of the most splendid house. With a vindictive satisfaction I tried to imagine a stupid face of that puffed-up, arrogant Potter when he would understand how little his own family meant in comparison with mine.  
  
But that was something I couldn't do.  
  
'I want you not to make your origin known public for the time being.' said Dumbledore when we stooped on the castle's stairs; I looked at him with surprise 'Only we know the truth and let it remain between us, at least until you finish Hogwart. When you are older you will see that any inheritance can be both gift and curse.'  
  
I didn't know what those mysterious words supposed to mean. Could be anything better that SUCH an inheritance. That evening I was sure it couldn't.  
  
And yet I swore that I would keep it secrets for six years. That was a price of the truth.  
  


*

The first question I asked myself when the initial euphoria had passed was: why my mother, who had also Slytherin's blood in her veins, died on a street, alone and left not only by her lousy Muggle husband but by her own world? Didn't she have any relatives except the Riddles family? Was she also the last heir of Slytherin, orphaned and brought up by the people who didn't really care about her? But on the other hand, every witch and wizard would consider it an honour to look after Slytherin's descendant. So why did my mother die like that ?  
  
I couldn't understand it. I've been thinking about it for a long time and finally, desperate, I went to Dumbledore's office, searching for advise. In those times I treated him like a kind of an oracle and I expected him to find an answer to my every question.  
  
But this time it looked different. Dumbledore listened to me attentively, observing me over the top oh his half-moon glasses, but when I finished and looked at him anticipatingly, an expression of strange, painful grief appeared on his face. He slowly shook his head.  
  
'I'm sorry, Tom,' he said softly, avoiding my eyes and staring at some point over my head. 'But I cannot help you.'  
  
I couldn't hide my disappointed. Dumbledore noticed that and smiled apologetically but remained silent.  
  
'But...' I began, trying to formulate somehow all tangled thoughts running through my mind 'But you know, who I am...you had to now my mother...'  
  
For the second time this evening Dumbledore shook his head.  
  
'No, Tom,' he said, not looking at me 'I didn't know her...believe me, I wish I did, but I didn't know Felicia Riddle,' for a one short while the look of his blue eyes was very distant, as if the wizard was watching something in the past.  
  
I moved uneasily. I completely didn't get what Dumbledore meant.  
  
'I knew your story only recently,' continued the wizard 'when the Headmaster asked me to prepare a list of the new first-years. You cannot imagine how much I was surprised when I discovered a heir of Slytherin in the Muggle orphanage.'  
  
Well, in fact I could imagine it perfectly well. During the last year I faced several surprises myself. But there were still something that haunted me.  
  
'But if you didn't know my mother,' I started, frowning 'how could you find out about me? Nobody knew I was a wizard.'  
  
Dumbledore looked at me with a gentle smile.  
  
'I see it's difficult to puff you off with just anything,' he said with a tone of appreciation 'Inquisitiveness and tenacity of purpose are indeed praiseworthy.' his blue eyes were fixed on my face. 'And coming back to your question... The Ministry of Magic keeps a so-called Public Register. It's a piece of a very advanced magic,' he informed me proudly. 'It contains a list of all witches and wizards, living in our country. Anytime a child with magical abilities is born, her or his name appears in the Register. The system has worked for centuries so in the case of the pure-blood children we know their genealogy up to several dozens generations. Every year the Register prepares a list of the first-years, which should start their education in the school of magic.'  
  
'Ah! And there was written in the Register that I'm a heir of Slytherin!' I exclaimed.  
  
'Not exactly,' said Dumbledore lengthily 'You see, the list contains only names and addresses of the students but doesn't mention about their parentage. Of course, it can be checked in the Register, but the only person who is allowed to do that is the Minster of Magic.'  
  
I sank to the chair. I stopped to understand anything again. Dumbledore's eyes flashed.  
  
'Tom, I would like that what I'm going to tell you now remain between us.' he said gravely, leaning over the desk; I nodded eagerly. 'The present Minister of Magic is an old friend of my and it was him who revealed me in secret the origin of little Tom Riddle.'  
  
Yes, it really explained everything. I was so absorbed in deliberating over all new facts that I didn't ask myself an obvious question: why did the Minister of Magic look in the register for information about the half-muggle orphan. And why did he decide that he should share with Albus Dumbledore all he had found out?  
  
Future was going to show than nothing happens without a reason...  
  
But for the time being I left the Dumbledore's office, determined to learn everything about the history of my family.  
  


*

For the following weeks I spend several hours daily in the library. The exams were approaching and most of the other students behaved liked that but, contrary to them, I didn't lose time for repeating recipes of the potions and incantation of various spells. I had it all in my fingers ends and the exams made me anxious only because they meant the end of the school year and return to the odious orphanage. I brushed it aside, however, from my thoughts and lost myself into studying of the Slytherin's mysteries.  
  
The Greatest of the Four, as he was called, was born in 966 in the wizrading family of long history and traditions, though neither very rich nor of the significant weigh.  
  
A legend says that Lady Cassandra Slytherin, Salazar's mother, had a strange dream several days before his birth, the dream that many historians interpreted as a classical example of a prophetic dream. She saw her son, standing on a lonely island in the middle of the lake. Four rivers were falling into the lake from the four sides of the world. Suddenly animals appeared on the island: eagle, lion and badger and on the Salazar's place a great, silver-green scaled snake was creeping in the grass. The mist had come and whirled onto a thick, impenetrable shroud and after a while an outline of a great castle, with many turrets and towers, loomed from it. Suddenly a terrible, icy hiss cut the silence. The snake rose its flat head, its eyes flashed rapaciously and sharp fangs came out from the open mouth. The wind blew and scattered misty contours of the castle while water in the rivers run with blood...  
  
Till today the historians argue whether it really happened or whether the story about Lady Cassandra's prophetic dream was invented years later, when her son had already attained fame of the most powerful wizard.  
  
Anyhow it really was, there is no doubt that Salazar has shown makings of a genius man since he was a child. Very talented, speaking Parseltongue, he was also a born leader. He could enchant people with his ideas, his opinion was an oracle and, before he finished twenty five years, he had risen a leader of all magical community. Several years later, together with Rovena Ravenclaw, Goddric Gryffindor and Helga Huffleppuff, he founded the first in England Academy of Magic.  
  
In the beginning they co-operated in a perfect agreement and every years more and more students appeared in the castle. But harmony between the Hogwart's founders didn't last long. Several years later Slytherin quarrelled with the others and left the Academy in anger.  
  


*

What was the reason of such a discord? The truth, when I had finally discovered it, damped my spirits at once. In one second all euphoria vanished and for the first time my inheritance appeared in all its dreariness.  
  
Salazar Slytherin was a racialist. He believed that the Muggle-born witches and wizards were unworthy to merit education in such an exclusive institution like the Academy of Magic and he demanded not to let them into the school. The other three, however, in unison overruled that idea. Slytherin left Hogwart, furious and humiliated with the first defeat in his life, devising in secret a deadly revenge.  
  
When I finished the chapter, describing those events, my hands were shaking and I had difficulties in putting back a book "_Slytherin - god or demon_ ?". I shakily reached the library's door and passed a group of the Ravenclaws which, seeing my pale face, exchanged significant looks and whispers: 'Even Riddle is scared of the exams.' I don't know how I got to the dungeons. I went straight to the abandoned dormitory and fell on the bad, staring vacantly at the ceiling.  
  
Strange are the paths of destiny... The last heir of Salazar Slytherin impersonated everything what the Greatest of the Four hated and despised. And what his followers have despised for centuries. I realised that he became an eternal symbol for those who considered a Muggle blood to be the most shameful mark.  
  
On the other hand, for me such a view was completely absurd and void of any rational reasons. I still believed, or at least I desperately wanted to believe, in what Homer had always repeated: "It counts what you have in your head and in your heart". What could I think about my inheritance I was so proud of ? Was it the inheritance of prejudices and hatred? I think I began to understand what Dumbledore had meant talking about the gift and the curse.  
  
But I couldn't and didn't want to renounce Slytherin's blood, not now when I have already acquired a taste for a role of the heir of the most powerful wizard in the history.  
  
Was it my cursed fate? Was my origin to bring on me only distress, no matter how disgraceful or ennobling it was for the others? I started to lose myself in it. I didn't know what to think.  
  
As usually in such situations, in the first impulse I thought about asking for Dumbledore's help. But then I hesitated. Why didn't Dumbledore tell me at once who Salazar Slytherin had been? Why did he NEVER tell me at once everything, what I should know. I believe he must have some reasons but I couldn't guess of what kind. And I plainly realised that since that moment I can rely only on myself. I have to tide over the burden of my inheritance alone.  
  
Those were difficult days. I was split between what I believed in and what the dark succession of my family brought.  
  
But then I found out about other interesting legend, which for a long time diverted my attention from those painful considerations. The legend that was to lead me much farther than I expected. Much farther than I had ever wished.  
  


* * *

(*) in Latin: _naris_-nose, _natis_-nates; Tom must have made a mistake in the incantation. 


	4. Chamber of Secrets, part I

DISCLAIMER: Since the next chapters becomes longer and longer, I will be dividing them in two parts, to upload them more often. Please, be patient ! I don't have much time for writting and translating.  
  


* * *

  
4. Chamber of Secrets  
  
The Dark Arts fascinated Slytherin and there were neither witch nor wizard who would have studied them so thoroughly as he had done. After leaving Hogwart he burrowed in his old, family castle, hidden among the stony slopes of the Caledonian Mountains and began long, arduous studies, which several years later resulted in the Slytherin's most beloved work, the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
For the first time I found out about it in a thick volume of the '_Hogwart: the history_', in the chapter 'Myths and legends'. According to the olds stories, Slytherin had built a secret room in Hogwart that could have been found and opened only by himself or by his expectant heir. He hid there something terrifying, something that the heir of Slytherin was to set free in the future and so to rid Hogwart of the Muggle-born students. That was Slytherin's revenge. Of course, the authors of the book stressed in unison that the Chamber of Secrets was only a legend. For centuries many famous witches and wizard have tried to find the secret room. In vain.  
  
The story made a great impression on me. I always thought that the legends didn't arise from nothing and that in any of them there was a bit of truth. Though I didn't believed in the stories about a hidden horror, which I took rather for a trick making it darker and more horrifying, I was sure that there was a secret room somewhere at Hogwart, untrodden from the times of Slytherin. I decided to be the one who would find the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
I didn't expect, however, that the task would appear so difficult. The first obstacle I met as early as the next day when I tried to learn something more about the Chamber of Secrets. After a ten-hours long hard work and digging myself through the dozens of old books it turned out, to my rage and despair, that in the school library '_Hogwart: the history_' was the only source of information about the Slytherin's secret.  
  
I came to a dead stop and I completely didn't know what should I do; I couldn't ask a teacher for help, after all. Nothing remained but to search again through a huge pile of the books, which I had gathered on three adjoining tables in the library's corner, hopeful that I would find something I had missed during the first reading.  
  
And I was in luck. It was about midnight and my eyes have already started to close themselves when I noticed a hand-written note, scribbled on a margin of a compendium: '_The greatest of the world from A to Z_', in the chapter dedicated to Salazar Slytherin. The note, written in haste, was very poor readable but after a while I succeeded in making out its contents: _The Great Ministerial Library_. All sleepiness left me in a moment and I was ready to go to London in that very second. I believed that in the Ministerial Library, an immense source of knowledge, I would find a track leading to the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
I started to count off the days till the end of the semester. Finally the exams had passed (I got the maximal marks from all the subjects) and the Hogwart Express took me back to the Muggle world. But instead of changing a train for the one to Liverpool, I went to look for the Ministry of Magic, provided with a precise plan of the city.  
  
I quickly found the Ministry and after a while I stood, speechless, on the threshold of the largest library rooms I have ever seen. The shelves as high that their tops disappeared in the great distance extended through the whole chamber in dozens of rows. There must have been millions of book and I was sure that sooner or later (though I preferred not to specify too exactly that 'later") I would find among them what I have been dreaming about for weeks.  
  
So I stared to look for. After six days of systematic work, which I began at dusk and finished after dark (I slept under the open sky on a small lane of the London suburbs, covered with the used newspapers; I had completely omitted the fact that I had no money!), I finally found a longed-for track. A book, which made my heart beating widely, was very old, worn out and didn't have a title page but judging by its contents I must have been written by someone from the Slytherin's family in the XIV or XV century. The book, a tribute paid to the famous ancestor, told in details the story of Salazar's life. From my point of view the most interesting chapters referred to his activity after leaving Hogwart, when, according to the legend, he was preparing his bloody revenge.  
  
And there, among the yellowish pages of the old parchment, I found a clue to solve a riddle. It was a copy of Slytherin's original notes that, according to the author of the book, described precisely how to get to the Chamber of Secrets. That was what I was looking for ! Only one small hitch held me from giving a wild cry of triumph; Slytherin's note was completely obscure for me. And I don't mean it was written in a foreign or archaic language. It WASN'T language at all. The page was covered with strange, sinuous signs that joined in some greater structures, but they reminded rather drawings than letters and words. I had no idea what they indicated but I was sure that the piece of paper was a key to the Chamber of Secrets. I tore out the page and, decided to clear up the riddle of mysterious signs, I set off to Liverpool.  
  
But during the holidays I didn't move a single step towards the understanding of Slytherin's notes. Now I was counting off the days to the beginning of the school year and to coming back to my beloved magic.  
  


*

Apart from Persus Potter I didn't have enemies in Hogwart. I didn't have friends, either. My classmates treated me kindly and with a sort of esteem, my voice was respected in every discussion and anyone who needed help in his homework came to me. However, I didn't strike up a closer friendship with anybody. Maybe it was due to my childhood in the orphanage or maybe I was a solitary by nature, the fact is that I didn't need company, totally absorbed in discovering of the amazing magical world. Beside, though more than a year had passed since the death of Elias Homer, I still couldn't forget why I wanted to kill myself that horrible night. So maybe I subconsciously didn't look for new friends, fearing of bringing a misfortune on somebody else.  
  
I didn't expect that everything would change in autumn...  
  
Amis Dumbledore was a grandson of Aberforth Dumbledore, a younger brother of the transfiguration teacher. He began learning in Hogwart one year after I did. He was sorted to the Slytherin and, as he confessed me later, form the very first day he was sure that I would become his best friend.  
  
I have no idea what made him draw such a supposition. If he had know me he would have realised how much we differed from each other. And yet, as it was to turn out in the future, we had more in common than any of us could have expected...  
  
Amis was a shy and quiet boy. His family name, already famous and esteemed in the magical world due to Albus Dumbledore, overwhelmed him. He considered, and no without a reason, that the whole family expected him to follow in his grandfather's brother footsteps, whereas Amis, though shrewd and intelligent, didn't have Albus Dumbledore's talent. And he was aware of it. He was often telling me that his greatest dream was to burrow in some high mountains and dedicated to the astronomy, which he loved.  
  
If Amis was afraid that he would be favoured by the teachers because of his surname, he could have a sigh of relief. He was treated like the other students and many times I have been poring with him over the books till midnight, helping him in his Transfiguration and Potions homework lest he fails his next exercise.  
  
That obvious fact seemed not to convince Persus Potter. As I threatened his megalomania with my talent, so Amis did with his surname. But if I was usually very resistant to his provoking, Amis took deeply to heart all rancorous remarks and many a time he came back to the dormitory with tears in his eyes.  
  
I think that it was Potter's hostility against both of us, which caused that I began to notice Dumbledore's quiet grandson, that to sympathize with him and finally we became friends. And who had once overcome Amis' mistrust and really knew him, couldn't not to love him.  
  


*

A year had passed and there were still no results in my searching for the Chamber of Secrets. Slytherin's note was still as obscure as the day I had seen it for the first time in the Ministerial Library. Despaired with lack of any progress in that field, I decided to assail this task in another way. For several months I have been systematically coming out Hogwart, hopeful to find a slightest trace of the Chamber of Secrets. In vain.  
  
During the holidays I visited London again (it was the last moment; several weeks later a Battle of England began) and once more I spent long hours over the old books but I didn't find out anything new.  
  
I was really frustrated. For the first time in my life I met a problem I couldn't solve and it put me in a rage. I have been staring at the Slytherin's note for hours, trying to search a secret hidden in it.  
  
I came back among the safe walls of Hogwart with relief (the war was storming in the Muggle world) and I began the third year of studies. Sometimes I wanted to share the secret of my descent with Amis but always something held me back. Beside, I promised Dumbledore.  
  
September was particularly warm and sonny so we past most of our free time outside the castle. One afternoon, when we Amis and I were sitting at the lake, we noticed a first-year Hufllepuff boy wandering close to us.  
  
A first-year usually associates with someone small and rather inconspicuous, but that didn't suit Rubeus Hagrid at all. Of an adult man stature, broad-shouldered and of powerful build, he had thick, dark, matted hair and small, black eyes, now looking intently for something in the grass. He didn't notice us until he stepped on Amis.  
  
'Ups, sorry.' he mumbled in confusion 'But I'm lookin'...mean...didn't see a snake ?'  
  
We looked at each other bewildered and in unison shook our heads negatively. Hagrid looked disconsolate.  
  
'Escapin' me all the time' he said in a tone of explanation, mumbled excuses once more and started to comb out the rushes at the lake shore.  
  
We were observing him for a while and then we returned to reading. A half an hour had passed (Hagrid had already reached the opposite side o the lake) when I heard a strange, hissing whisper, coming from the nearby reeds.  
  
'He hasss finally gone,' somebody said with a distinct satisfaction 'Now I can return to the foressst.'  
  
I fixed my eyes on the rushes, expecting some human being to emerge from them in a moment. But nothing happened. I was about to get up and look for the owner of a mysterious voice, when I heard it again, this time somewhere very close.  
  
'Foressst, foressst,' now it was almost a joyful singing 'My sssweet home.'  
  
I looked in the direction the sounds were coming from and I leapt to my feet; The Runs textbook fell into the water with a splash. A small, green-brown snake was creeping along the lake.  
  
'Foressst, autumnal foressst' it was humming.  
  
I was staring at it, completely crestfallen. I understood it and that meant I was a Parselmouth. But how could it be? The only wizard who could ever speak that strange language was...SLYTHERIN !!!  
  
And then I understood. It was so unexpected that I almost lost my breath and sat down on the grass heavily.  
  
Slytherin's note has been written in the Parseltongue.  
  


*

Though that discovery was undoubtedly a great turn, I was still far from reading Slytherin's notes. First of all, I had to know Paresltongue better. To this end I asked Hagrid to supply me with a snake, which I was going to greed in the dormitory as a kind of a teacher. Rubeus performed this task unexpectedly fast and at the end of November I put a small terrarium on a night table, with a thin, black snake inside.  
  
A conversation with that extremely intelligent creature was always very interesting and instructive, and not only in respect of linguistic. Esculap, an old reptile, came from Egypt. He arrived to England, against his own will, by a merchant ship, where he fell asleep after devouring an exceptionally tasty mouse. When he woke up after several days, he discovered with horror that the whole world had shrunken to the size of a big house, from all sides surrounded by water. Till today he was in wonder that he hadn't lost his mind during this terrible journey. When the ship had finally harboured in a port, Esculap shot from the deck like a rocket and he didn't stop until he reached the forest. For some time he has been healing his shattered nerves there and then he started on a journey across the unknown county, which to his great disappointment turned out to be an island; a very big one, but still an island. Finally he got to the Forbidden Forest where Hagrid caught him.  
  
Esculap always talked with a great nostalgia about his lost homeland. He assured me that for thousands of years the magic has been very well developed there and he was sure I would find many interesting things there. Listening to those stories I decided that after finishing Hogwart I would go to Egypt. I promised Esculap to take him with me and he was beside himself with joy. If only the snakes could cry he would have tears in his eyes.  
  
After a year of our friendship I knew the syntax and grammar of the Parseltongue. Now I could begin a laborious translating of Slytherin's instructions, which surely were the unique recording of the reptile language. I felt as if I was trying to break a very complicated code or Egyptian hieroglyphs.  
  
It took another year but finally, at the end of July of 1942, I had an exact translation of Salazar Slytherin's note in front of my eyes.  
  
I knew where the Chamber of Secrets was.  
  


*

I came back to Hogwart with only one wish: to open a secret room. I realised, however, that now when I was so close, I must have been extremely careful. I didn't want to ruin everything with a one rash step. I couldn't open the Chamber of Secrets with hundreds of students wandering around. Someone could see me and four years of a hard work would be lost. I decided to wait till Christmas.  
  
Those were the longest four months in my life. I couldn't focus my thoughts on nothing else but the Chamber of Secrets. Every night I spent sleepless hours, wondering what I would find behind the hidden entrance, mentioned in the Slytherin's note. Some new, unknown powers? Might of my ancestor that I, his heir, was supposed to acquire ? Or something completely different ? The note didn't precise it so I was inventing the most weird possibilities, completely rendering trite the fact that the Chamber of Secrets was a fruit of vengeance.  
  
Every now and then I was seized with anxiety. And what if after recovering the Chamber I won't be able to open it ? If I will have to use the Dark Arts I knew nothing about those days? Though Slytherin wrote that the main trump card of the future discoverer was his inheritance, it didn't dispel all my fears. I could only hope that indeed Salazar's instructions told everything what I should know.  
  
Time hung heavy in my hands and yet it was passing irrevocably. Loads of homework and new duties, related to my Prefect function, allowed me to hold out till December. Snow covered the school-grounds, Christmas decorations appeared in Hogwart and finally a longed-for day had come when most of the students left the school for two long weeks. Only a few persons remained and, to my silent satisfaction, none of them was from the Slytherin. I stayed in the dungeons alone and that was exactly what I needed.  
  
As usual, the Christmas feast took place in the Great Hall. There were only two teachers: Headmaster Dippet and professor Solaris who lectured Astronomy. From their side I didn't expect any problems. Dippet was too busy to lose his precious time for patrolling the corridors while Solaris never left at night his office on the top of the Northern Tower.  
  
Hogwart stood wide open.  
  


*

I DID IT. After more than one thousand years the heir of Slytherin opened the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
If I hadn't acted so naively and recklessly, could we have avoided everything that happened later ? If I had taken seriously the legend about the horror concealed in the Chamber of Secrets, would I have hesitated before I opened the hidden door?  
  
I don't know...besides, it doesn't matters now. I can't change the past. I will never again help Amis in his homework, Esculap will never see the proud shapes of his beloved pyramids. I have innocent blood on my hands, which still burns me like an infernal fire.  
  
And it all happened because I had underestimated the power of hatred... I found neither mighty forces nor a deep knowledge in the Chamber of Secrets. Nothing, that would make me a wizard as powerful as my famous ancestor.  
  
Instead, I found a basilisk. When I saw it for the first time - huge coils of a dark grey, scaled body, slowly emerging from the stone mouth of a gigantic statue of Slytherin - I thought it was a guardian of the Chamber. I spoke to it in the Parseltongue but I had an impression that the reptile had known perfectly well before, who I was. It crept to me, its grey scales rubbing softly against the stony floor, and put its head on my feet in a gesture I interpreted as a respectful bow.  
  
'Ave, the heir of Ssslytherin' it hissed pronouncing a consonant 's' in a reptilish manner.  
  
'Who...who are you ?' I uttered.  
  
The basilisk rose proudly its head and only then I noticed that its eyes were closed.  
  
'I'm a Ssslytherin'sss vengeance,' it said solemnly 'And they alssso call me Tanathosss, an Incarnate Death. I'm who carriesss death to the impure onesss.'  
  
Beast's ominous hiss was filled with such a horrible hatred and cruelty that I shuddered. I knew almost too well who the word 'impure' referred to. And I realised that Thanatos was nothing else but a secret weapon of Slytherin, by means of which his heir (that is to say: me) was to settle accounts with all Mudbloods, profaning the holly grounds of Hogwart.  
  
If I had listened to reason then ! If I had closed the Chamber of Secrets before Tanathos started to take its deadly toll... But I couldn't find it in my heart to do that. I didn't want to. I had spent more than three years of my life on searching, three years of hard, laborious work. I couldn't ruin it just like that. I couldn't renounce a dream of glory and power.  
  
Tanathos was a basilisk; its look could kill. Millenium is only an instant for those long-lived reptiles, which can remain for centuries in a strange lethargy, resembling more death than a dream. But now Thanatos has already woken up.   
  
It was hungry. And blood thirsty.  
  
In the middle of January the first student was attacked. 


	5. Chamber of Secrets, part II

to Katayoun : to fast to the 5th year ? It's because nothing really important happened in Tom's live during that time. This part of the diray is written in 1944, after all the described events, and Tom says only about what was really crucial for him and what he remembered best.   
  
PLZ REVIEW !!!  
  
I'd like to know your opinions !   


* * *

  
. . . continuation  
  
Nobody knew what had befallen little Ralph Stone, except that it was something terrible. His grey, rigid face expressed such a horror that professor Glamour fainted at the very look of it. The boy was alive but he was petrified. It wasn't irreversible but the Mandrake Restorative Draught couldn't be prepared before several months when the mandrakes would mature. For the time being no teacher knew what could have caused Ralph's terrible condition. I was the only one who knew the truth.  
  
Since the day when I opened the Chamber of Secrets and met Tanathos, I have read everything about the basilisks. I found out that their gaze could petrify, if only the victim would not look straight into the best eyes but see them reflected in something, for example in the mirror. I realised perfectly well who had attacked little Stone. And I also noticed that he was Muggle-born; a fact that nobody paid attention to.  
  
I knew that the only way to stop Tanathos was to close the Chamber of Secret. The basilisk respected the heir of Slytherin in me but it would never obey an order, contradictory to his master's will. Tanathos was Salazar's creature, his vengeance, and nothing and no one could turn it from its bloody path of death.  
  
But I was still hesitating and fostering delusive hope that nothing bad would happen again...  
  


*

Shirley Dinky was found on the bank of the lake, rigid and grey as Ralph Stone. It occurred at the end of March. I guessed at once that Tanathos, wandering around the castle through the system of pipes, had finally found its way out.  
  
It was then when Dumbledore suggested for the first time that a mysterious beast could be responsible for the attacks. For the whole week the teachers have been searching the castle meter by meter, but they didn't find the slightest trace of the intruder. And I couldn't resist an alarming feeling that Dumbledore, as the only one, has been looking for something more. I had also an impression that he had started to observe me more intently than ever, though anytime I looked at him he quickly turned aside his glance. I didn't know if he could guess my participation in this affair. He has already proved many times that he could see the truth where the others didn't suspect it at all. On the other hand, it seemed impossible that anyone, even Dumbledore, had got on a trace of the Chamber of Secrets. No one believed in its existence, after all !  
  
However, I couldn't overcome an anxiety and qualms of conscience, stronger and stronger every day. I felt responsible for what happened to Ralph and Shirley. Happened only because the Muggle blood ran in their veins. I couldn't conceal any longer from myself that hatred and death was the only gift Slytherin had left to his heir. And I didn't want such inheritance. I was a Mudblood, too.  
  
I knew what I should do. I was just coming back to the dormitory, decided to put a stop to Tanathos' terror that very night, when I noticed a crowd of students, gathered at the foot of the stairs about something lying on the stone floor. I felt my heart in my mouth. I knew too well what I would see in a moment.  
  
In a pool of a thick, red liquid, which at the first moment I took for the blood (later it turned out that it was only a paint), Desmond Clever, a seventh-year Gryffindor, was lying. But it was not his ghastly pale face that absorbed my attention. On the wall, above the place where Desmond was lying, a blood-red inscription was shimmering in the light of the torches:  
  
_

"ENEMIES OF HIER, BEWARE"

_  
I came to a standstill. For a short while I didn't see anything except the bright, purple letters that seemed to be glowing coldly. I must have looked not better than Desmond since professor Solaris asked me anxiously if I was all right. I don't remember what I answered, I quickly made my out of the crowd and as mad, knocking against the walls, I moved towards the dungeons.  
  
Dozens of questions were whirling in my feverish mind. Who has written the inscription? I was sure Tanathos hasn't. Did it mean, therefore, that there was someone in Hogwart who knew the secret of my ancestry? Someone who knew that the Chamber of Secrets had been open?  
  
I reached the dormitory and slumped into an armchair, standing in front of the blazing fireplace. I don't know for how long I've been sitting there, lost in gloomy considerations, when suddenly the door creaked and Amis entered the room. He was paler than usual and his blue eyes were sparkling with a hard-restrained agitation. He approached the fireplace and sat in the neighbouring armchair, not taking his searching eyes off my face.  
  
'Did you see...?' he asked quietly and like with an anxious expectation on my reaction 'Did you see the inscription?'  
  
I nodded, though, still debating over all the events of this day, I was only partly aware of Amis' question. Whereas he moved uneasily on his chair and bending his fingers (what he did always when he was nervous) he whispered:  
  
'They should know...Potter most of all...' it sounded as if Amis was urgently trying to convince himself about the rightness of those words.  
  
Several seconds had passed before I fully realised what Amis wanted to say. For a while I was staring at him as if I had seen him for the first time. Now, for a change, my mind was completely empty.  
  
'What are you talking about?' I asked with a forced calm, though I knew perfectly well that there was only one possible answer.  
  
Amis swallowed nervously.  
  
'Tom, I have written that,' he threw it out at one breath.  
  


*

Amis Dumbledore resembled his great-uncle in one respect: he could see through people. He had this rare gift of reading in people's heart, which together with his analytic mind made him very difficult to cheat. And he knew me very well. I could deceive everybody except my best friend.  
  
He has suspected for months that I've been working on something rare that was a great challenge even for my unquenchable ambition. Then Esculap arrived to the dormitory and soon Amis discovered that I was a Parselmouth. He has never revealed it, however. He knew me and he was sure that I would tell him everything myself when I was ready. Besides, it wasn't the only secret I unawares shared with Amis. A year before he found out, involuntarily overhearing conversation between his grandfather Aberhorth and his brother, that Tom Riddle was a heir of Slytherin.  
  
After Tanathos' first attack Amis noticed at once that I became strangely upset and depressed. He started to observe me attentively and he quickly realised that I spent suspiciously much time studying basilisks' habits. He guessed at once that I KNEW who attacked the students. Neither he missed the fact that all the victims were Muggle-born.  
  
Amis knew the legend about Slytherin's revenge. Putting all the elements of the puzzle together he realised I had opened the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
Since that time he was split between sense of duty that told him to inform headmaster Dippet and loyalty to me. It has never entered his head that I could have opened the Chamber to continue my ancestor's bloody work. He believed in me and was deeply convinced I had the situation well in hand. So he kept silent.  
  
Amis always admired me and all invectives and abuse that Perseus Potter regularly showered on me, hurt him to the raw. Now, when I achieved what the most eminent witches and wizard had failed to achieve for centuries, his admiration transformed into adoration. He wanted the whole world to bow down before the genius of Tom Riddle. He wanted no one else dared to call me 'dirty Mudblood' any more.  
  


*

A mysterious writing on the wall provoked a real avalanche of suspicions and speculations. Everyone who has ever read "_Hogwart: the history_", knew that those were the last words Slytherin had said before leaving the castle. The name: Chamber of Secret was whispered in the classes and on the corridors and soon the school divided into two fractions: the ones who believed that the legendary room had been opened and the others, who considered that someone made a stupid joke. But everybody asked the same question: WHO.  
  
In those days I was closely observing Dumbledore, trying to find the slightest sign that he knew the truth. But anytime I stared at him he looked away and treated me with absolute indifference. Strange indifference.  
  
Two days after the last attack I decided to close the Chamber of Secrets. I had to put a stop to Tanathos' hunt. I knew that if I would let him prowl through the Hogwart longer, sooner or later it would come to a real tragedy.  
  
In the last expedition to the hidden room I was accompanied by Amis. He begged me to show him the legendary place and I agreed to that easily. I trusted Amis infinitely. Besides, I've been dying to tell him for months about my great secret. I taught him a formula, opening the hidden door, I introduced him to Tanathos, which well-fed and satisfied (I didn't know what he fed on, but I preferred not to inquire) was dozing in the middle of the room.  
  
And finally I did what I should have done a long time before. I closed the doors to the Chamber of Secret. I believed that for ever...  
  


*

When the dead body of Myrtle Grumble has been found, every man and ghost in Hogwart thought the same: a mysterious monster had attacked again. Previous fear turned into panic. A rumour about the girl's death quickly got out of the school walls and resounded through the whole country. Two hours later the headmaster office was sunk in a real flood of letters. Horrified parents warned that they would take their children away next morning, and some even demanded to close the Hogwart till the dangerous beast would be caught. And the frightened students wouldn't leave their dormitories even if it hadn't been strictly forbidden.  
  
I heard about Myrtle's death during the Potions class. I was so shocked that I got shattered into atoms the whole set of the glass vessels, which slipped from my numb hands. I couldn't believe in what I'd just heard. HOW could it happen?!  
  
I tried to collect my scattered thought on my way to the dormitory. I had no doubt that the murder was Tanathos' work, though I completely couldn't understand it. I closed the Chamber of Secrets !  
  
Five minutes later professor Glamour brought back the fourth-years. I looked for Amis and...I felt my knees bent and my heart was in my mouth. Amis looked terrible: ghastly pale, with red, wet eyes, he was choking with sobs. I moved closer and then I saw with horror a numb, motionless body of Esculap, lying in his hands.  
  
At the sound of my steps Amis rose his head and an immense despair appeared in his blue eyes. He looked at me, he looked at Esculap, he moaned in distress and crying he run away to his room.  
  
I dragged myself after him. I've already known what had happened.  
  
It was Peresus Potter fault. If that disastrous morning he hadn't called me Mudblood during the breakfast, Myrtle Grumbler would live till today. But it was done. Amis hated when Potter sneered at me and that was the drop that overfilled the cup of bitterness. He decided to revenge himself. After the breakfast he came back to the dormitory, looked through my notes and half an hour later he opened the Chamber of Secrets. He called Tanathos and led him towards the exit from the underground tunnel, situated in the girls' toilet. He told basilisk to wait there (except "open", "wait" was the only world Amis could pronounce in the Parseltongue) till he brought Potter. Of course, he didn't want to kill him only to frightened out of his wits. It was just a bad-luck that Myrtle hid herself in the toilet...  
  
And Esculap ? Well, he fell a victim to his noble heart. He saw Amis taking my notes and he crept after him, extremely anxious. Esculap didn't know about the Chamber of Secrets, but he felt the presence of the basilisk. The last thing he saw were the yellow, rapacious eyes of Tanathos.  
  
The snakes are the only creatures resistant to the killing gaze of the basilisk. Esculap survived but he blinded forever.  
  
A caprice of fate, doom, fatal coincidence ... ? Does it matter now? I only know that it had never happened if I wouldn't have opened the Chamber of Secrets and wouldn't have shown it to my best friend.  
  
I was responsible for everything.  
  


*

The same evening, when Amis had finally calmed down a bit, he told me in a depressed voice that he felt as if he had killed Myrtle with his won hands. And that it would haunt him till the end of his life. I tried to convince him that if anyone could be blamed for what had happened, I was the one. In vain. Amis was sunk in a black despair, full of hatred and disgust for himself. And the Chamber of Secrets was still open and every moment Tanathos could attack again. I had to finish it, this time forever. When the midnight had passed, I quietly slipped away from the dormitory...  
  
Half an hour later I was coming back to the dungeons when murmurs and puffing came from behind the corner of the corridor. My hair stood on end and I started to listen. Though I knew it was impossible, I feared I would hear a cruel laughter of Tanathos. I pulled out my wand and carefully peeped out from behind the corner.  
  
It was Rubeus Hagrid. He was standing in front of the door of a small niche, covering its inside with all his enormous person. At the sound of my steps he turned round rapidly and an expression of a pure horror appeared on his face. In the same moment a huge, black, hairy spider sprang out from behind his back. I reacted reflexively. I rose my wand and aiming at the monster I shouted: '_Stupefy_!' Rubeus yelled desperately and lunged aside, protecting the spider. The beast jumped impetuously on my chest knocking me down to the floor, I felt a hideous touch of its limbs, grown with a short, rough bristles. But before I could call the incantation again, the enormous spider sprang down and disappeared in the darkness of the corridor.  
  
Several seconds later hasty steps sounded in the silence, that had fallen after that short but vehement struggle, and panting Albus Dumbledore emerged at the end of the corridor. He cast a watchful glance at the scene: me, starting up from the floor and unconscious Hagrid, lying at my feet.  
  
'What happened, Tom?' asked Dumbledore in a tired voice and in such a way that I had an impression he would rather not hear the answer.  
  
Obviously he suspected I had attacked Rubeus.  
  
'Professor!' I started to explain hastily 'Hagrid kept a great spider in that niche. I wanted to catch it but he stopped me.' I pointed at the boy.  
  
Dumbledore nodded silently and suddenly he looked straight into my eyes. It was one if those glances that seemed to penetrate into the innermost recesses of the soul.  
  
'We both know it wasn't Rubeus animal that had murdered Myrtle Grumbler' he said slowly not taking his piercing eyes off me.  
  
We were standing silently for a while. I was sure Dumbledore knew the truth. But I didn't want to shift my blame on anybody else. I was prepared to take the consequences of my deeds.  
  
'I didn't want it happened.' I said resignedly 'I have never wanted anybody's death.'  
  
Grief twinkled in Dumbledore's blue eyes.  
  
'I believe you, Tom,' he sighed heavily 'But nothing can bring this poor girl's life back. '  
  
I didn't say anything. Words were useless now. He was right, the past could not be changed.  
  
'Give me back your wand, Tom,' said Dumbledore in a mournful voice.  
  
'NO !!!'  
  
We turned back in unison. Amis was standing at the end of the corridor, ghastly pale but amazingly calm.  
  
'It wasn't Tom fault,' his voice, though slightly quivering, was very quiet 'I released the basilisk today.'  
  
Such a man was Amis: honest and noble to the bitter end...  
  
Dumbledore looked confused.  
  
'What are you talking about?' he snarled irritably 'TOM opened the Chamber of Secrets.'  
  
As Amis was talking, the expression of daze on Dumbledore's face was replaced by a total shock. He was staring at his grandson as if he was some very exotic creature. And for the first time since I have known him, he gave the impression of a man who didn't know completely what to do.  
  
'I should be expelled from Hogwart, not Tom,' Amis finished sullenly.  
  
Those last words recalled Dumbledore from bewilderment. He looked at his grandson and then quickly, as if reckoning something, at me and at the lying Hagrid.  
  
'This is the only way...' he whispered desperately and before I cloud know what was going on, he pulled out his wand and cried '_Stupefy _!'  
  
Amis fell down unconscious. I couldn't believe my eyes !  
  
'Why did you do that ?!' I yelled out with fury, reaching for my own wand, but next second it wrenched itself free from my hand and landed with a crash at Dumbledore's feet.  
  
'I'm not going to allow this affair to destroy my grandson's life,' he said with determination and I understood that this man would stop at nothing. 'Tomorrow the whole world will know that Tom Riddle, Prefect of Slytherin, caught the beast of Rubeus Hagrid, saving the life of his best friend.'  
  
A strange feeling came over me, as if I suddenly lost a sense of hearing. I could see Dumbledore's blue eyes, fixed on the mine; I could see his lips moving but even the slightest whisper didn't reach my ears. For a few terrible seconds my mind was a pure blank and then suddenly everything was back to normal.  
  
Dumbledore put his hand on my shoulder.  
  
'Let's go, Tom,' he said softly 'You will tell the Headmaster everything.'  
  


*

The same night Dumbledore transported unconscious Amis back home.  
  
Next morning it was announced that Rubeus Hagrid would be expelled from the school for hiding there a dangerous creature, responsible for Myrtle Grumbler's death. However, Dumbledore suggested lessening a bit the severity of punishment and letting Rubeus stay in Hogwart as the gamekeeper's helper.  
  
And I was a hero. Everybody admired my courage and composure. Headmaster Dippet shook my hand in front of the whole school. I also received an official congratulation letter from the Minister of Magic. For all day the processions of students were streaming to me, begging to tell them once more how I had got on Hagrid's track.  
  
And I was talking and talking. All the memories were still so fresh...  
  



	6. The Preceptor, part I

5. The Preceptor   
  
I finished the school-year with a spectacular success, passing perfectly all the OWL exams and moreover receiving the special awards from Transfiguration and Potions. Together with a glory of a hero that surrounded me from the night I had caught Hagrid, it made me feel as the most proud and happy man in the world.  
  
I was not going back to the orphanage. I took a room in the hotel "Morpheus Bed", which I was always very attached to since I had spent my first night in the magical world there. I didn't have to bother about money. A special prize, which I was awarded by the headmaster Dippet for the "eminent services" and amounting to 1000 galeons, could ensure a rich life on the Diagon Alley not only by two months of the holidays, but for the whole year.  
  
First weeks of July I spent on improving the art of teleportation. I learned it at the beginning of the fifth class, just to something during rainy, autumn evenings. I quickly acquired a great skill in it and soon I was able to apparate in any place in Britain.  
  
In those times the skill turned out to be especially useful. Once I liked to move through London by the Muggle communication, but now the sight of the ruins that the German blitzes turned into the whole quarters of the capital was too depressing for me. Like most of the witches and wizards, I kept away from the Muggle war. I thought that slaughter and destruction, committing day by day in the name of strange and obscure ideas, was only and solely Muggles' business.  
  


*

On July the 20th, in the evening, I was mooning about the Diagon Alley, casting a bored glance at the window-dressings. A year ago I couldn't take my eyes off them, but now I knew them nearly by heart. Neither Diagon Alley, nor even the Ministerial Library could give me any new attractions, so I was bored more and more and I've been waiting for the letter from my friend Amis more and more impatiently. Every summer I spent two weeks of August at his home.  
  
I passed by a white facade of the Grigotts Bank and turned to the narrow street that was winding down and fading out of sight in the growing darkness. Knockturn Alley was one of my favourite places in the whole wizarding district. In dozens of small shops, squeezed one by one on both sides of the twisting lane, one could find everything, all sorts and kinds of the magical articles from all over the world. There were Arabic flying carpets, Alladin's lamps from Persia (commonly considered to be tricky and even dangerous because of a malicious and unpredictable temper of the gins), Greek Pandora Boxes, India Mantras of the Fate, tzolkins from Central America (*) and many, many others.  
  
Crowds of foreign witches and wizards were bustling about the Knockturn Alley. I saw the dark-skin, tattooed shamans from Jamaica, the Tibetans in their traditional, purple-yellow dress (Muggle think that they are monks' frocks), Arabic merchants wearing long cloaks and leading the caravans of the loaded gibbars (those animals are similar to the camels but they can hover over the ground by means of the small but strong wings, sprouted from their fetlocks). I met Mexican brujos in colourful ponchos, which had such an interesting property that, depending on the situation, they can play the role of either a quite powerful anti-course shield or an Invisibility Cloak. All habitual guests of the Knockturn Alley (and I was one of them) knew where to look for the agents of the Chinese triads, being engaged in smuggling of the forbidden dragon organs, who apply to with an order for a hydra venom (accessibility of that extremely powerful poison was strictly limited by the Ministry of Magic), finally who bribe to speed up the progress of the official matters. No wonder then, that Knockturn Alley was the most crowded and noisy street of the district. It often became a scene of the passionate rows with the use of magic, chiefly when the 'businessmen' weren't able to fix the price satisfying both sides.  
  
But now the narrow path was almost completely empty, besides a few shady figures, crouching under the walls of the shops and not showing the slightest signs of life (in reality their minds were wandering in the land of dreams and fantasies, caused by an excessive consumption of tequila, famous Mexican Happiness Potion). It doesn't mean, however, that nothing happens at the Knockturn Alley in the evening. On the contrary. After the dusk the whole life moved under the roof of the famous (and pretending to be cosmopolitan) inn, of a much telling name "Globetrotter". It was here where, over a mug of an excellent beer _Mediator_, the most lucrative deals were transacted and where the information, qualified as a "top secret" by the ministries of many countries, were the most easily received.  
  
Draque, the owner of the place, a tall dark-haired man of a vampire appearance, whose real name nobody knew, came from Transilvania and some of the habitual guests of the inn claimed that in one of the deepest cellars he stored some large jugs, filled with a dark-red liquid that surely wasn't a wine. But even if there was a seed of truth in those stories, no one really cared about that. Draque could secure maximal discretion for his clients and with very good results (though in a way only he knew) he diverted interests of the ministry from the "Globetrotter".  
  
I pushed the door of the inn and walked down three wide, stone steps into the great hall. Its centre was lit by two rows of the lanterns, levitating under the ceiling, but the tables near the walls have been left in semi-darkness, conductive to the shady business. I was surrounded by the murmur of voices and I caught among them some fragments of conversations in Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and in a strange, melodious language I had never heard before.  
  
Intrigued, I turned my head in the direction of the voices. At the table up-room two young people were sitting, lost in a vivid discussion. Though, in fact, it wasn't a discussion but rather a monologue, said by the most amazing girl I have ever seen. She had tawny skin, dark, almond-shaped eyes, gleaming mysteriously in the light of the lanterns, and long, sleek, black hair, bound into a tight bun on her neck. She couldn't be more than twenty. Her original, Asian beauty, emphasised by a silk blood-red sari, tied with a golden sash, drew the eyes of most men in the inn. But she seemed to be unaware of it and was still explaining something to her companion.  
  
I realised I was standing in the middle of the wide passage between the tables, effectively hindering the work of five vigorous goblins, carrying on the huge trays high mugs of golden Mediator. Urged on by their cross growls I was just about to move towards my usual place next to the counter, when the black-haired girl rose her head and fixed piercing eyes on me. It was so unexpected that I felt like a school kid, caught in the act red-handed. I felt my mouths dried, my heart stated to thump madly and I realised with horror that I had flushed up to my ears. Some people observing that scene began to laugh.  
  
I felt a fool and I would teleport myself to the farthest end of Diagon Alley with pleasure. And the girl still didn't take her hypnotising eyes off me. Her friend was still turning his back on me but I couldn't resist a strange impression that he knew perfectly well what was going on behind him and that he was waiting for the progress of events.  
  
Five terribly long seconds passed and during that time the dark eyes seemed to pierce me right through. But suddenly the girl looked away and stared at the boy who leant towards her and said something silently. A disbelief appeared on her tawny face but when the boy whispered sharply, she nodded and did something I completely didn't expect at that moment: she beckoned me, inviting to their table.  
  
I must have looked very blank for the girl laughed in a brief, vibrating laugher.  
  
'Tom, don't be reluctant, come to us,' she said in excellent English with a slight irony.  
  
She had a deep, melodious voice that immediately absorbed the attention of every hearer. At the same time it awakened a strange longing deep in the heart and an irrepressible desire to do whatever the voice commanded.  
  
I don't know how I found myself at the table of the mysterious couple. The girl was watching me with a faint smile but I couldn't resist the feeling that it was not meant for me; it looked rather like a smile of satisfaction.  
  
'Hello, Tom,' she said and I realised only now that she knew my name; she must have noticed surprise in my eyes since she nodded with a sigh. 'You don't remember me ... But could I expect anything else? When I finished Hogwart you were only in the second class.'  
  
Now for a change I looked at her searchingly but her face didn't rouse any memories.  
  
'I'm sorry,' I said in a tone of excuse 'But really...'  
  
'Don't worry !' the girl waved carelessly her hand and smiled, this time with an explicit liking. 'I wouldn't have noticed and second-year either if he hadn't been so talented as you had. Yes,' she added 'Tom Riddle was more extraordinary than he thought.'  
  
'And than he still thinks,' said somebody close by in a hoarse whisper.  
  
I turned round surprised. I had completely forgotten about the girl's companion. Only now I could see his face in the full light oft he lanterns and...at the first moment I nearly screamed. I was looking straight into two blind eyes, devoid of the iris and pupils. Unnaturally light whites made his slender, oval face look weirdly and a bit in ghastly fashion.   
  
'This is Teresiah,' explained the girl.  
  
'Nice...nice to meet you,' I stammered out, trying not to look in the white eye-sockets.  
  
A scoffing smile appeared on Teresiah's lips as if he knew perfectly well the impression his face had made on me.   
  
'My name is Ramana,' the girl finished introduction 'All right, if the official part is over, we can pass on to the merits.'  
  
'To the merits?' I repeated uncertainly.  
  
I had no idea what the strange couple could want with me.  
  
'We've been looking for you to convey you an offer,' Teresiah sort of read in my mind 'Our Preceptor wishes to know you and convince himself personally if it is really true what they say about you. He is a great wizard and it's a honour to be one of his followers.'  
  
For a while I was sitting speechless, thinking about what I had just heard. And as the sense of those words was reaching my mind, a well-know desire of knowledge and new challenges flared up in my heart.  
  
'What does your Preceptor teach?' I asked, devoured by curiosity.  
  
'It's a real magic!' whispered Ramana passionately and her black eyes shone 'Not that funny hocus-pocus they teach in Hogwart. The power of Preceptor is unimaginable. Only there I understood how beautiful and subtle science the magic is! How much creative! And fascinating!'  
  
An expression of a deep rapture appeared on her face. She looked gloriously and I was staring at her enchanted, forgetting for w while about the wealth of knowledge that was expecting me in the Preceptor's abode. To tell the truth, I have forgotten about the whole world...  
  
Suddenly Ramana screamed, I could hear a sound of a slap, than a cry of pain mingled with a swear and a red-haired, drunken wizard fell on the floor next to our table, holding his bleeding nose with both his hands.  
  
'YOU BASTARD !!!' Ramana's voice, icy and full of hatred, was no longer soft and melodious; now it cut like w whip. 'You bloody bastard! How dared you touch me with your filthy hands !!!'  
  
The wizard mumbled something and tried to get up, but Ramana kicked him hardly in his crotch. Her black eyes, now contracted into the narrow slits, glinted ominously, an icy hiss proceeded through her clenched teeth and the hand reached for the wand.  
  
'Ramana, stop it!' said sharply Teresiah and once more I asked myself a question how the blind man could 'see' everything so well.  
  
The girl came to a standstill with a risen hand. She was breathing heavily for a while, then she slowly put her wand away, spat at the lying man and turned her back to him.  
  
'I think it's time to go,' said Teresiah making a sign to the goblin that he wanted to pay.  
  
The goblin reached to the pocket of his broad velveteens and pulled out a piece of a white parchment, which afterwards put on a black plate, standing on the table. Before five seconds passed, black numbers appeared on the paper. Teresiah reached for his purse, threw a counted sum on the plate and gave one galeon to the goblin, which was staring at him with the open mouth, obviously wondering how the blinded man had know how much to pay.  
  
Meanwhile the beaten drunkard stood unsteadily on his feet, looked around with a blood-shot eyes and suddenly he spotted Ramana's red sari.  
  
'You bitch !' he howled madly, staggering towards her.  
  
A white ray shot from the girl's wand and threw the wizard on the neighbouring table. If the previous row didn't excite much interest, now more and more spectators started to gather around. Ramana slowly approached the drunkard, her eyes were cold and ruthless.  
  
'Leave him!' shouted Teresiah imperatively but this time it didn't have any effect.  
  
'He offended me,' said Ramana with a dreadful calm 'and I will not tolerate this. Somebody who says such things about the woman should eat his own tongue.'  
  
Her voice turned into a strange, vibrating whisper, which seemed not to proceed from her mouth but sounded in the mind of every hearer. Restless eyes of the red-haired wizard came to a halt, fixed on Ramana's lips. And slowly, as if obeying someone's order, the man began to move his jaws steadily, biting and chewing something...  
  
A deadly silence has fallen.  
  
'Let's get out of here.' commanded Teresiah 'As far as I'm concern, you can teleport yourself ?' he neither asked nor state, turning his white eye-sockets at me.  
  


*

'Are you mad!?' growled Teresiah when Ramana apparated next to us 'Doing such a thing when the whole inn was looking at!'  
  
We were standing at a vast glade, shone by a pale moonlight. Cold wind was jerking madly tops of a few solitary spruces. All around high, steep mountains were looming, their black contours silhouetted against the dark-blue sky. And right in front of us, crouched on a precipitous slope, a huge castle rose into air with three high towers.  
  
'You're right, I exaggerated,' muttered Ramana, scowling at Teresiah 'But that was him who began. He deserved...'  
  
I remembered the face of the man who was calmly eating his own tongue. I turned round rapidly and vomited.  
  
As if they had only now realised my presence, young wizards dropped their dispute and moved closer.  
  
'All right?' asked Teresiah with a tone of anxiety.  
  
I nodded, furious at myself that I behaved like a raw lad. Ramana stopped next to me and gently took my face into her hands.  
  
'I'm sorry, Tom,' she whispered in a repentant voice, which now sounded soothingly and softly. 'I know, it was horrible. You must have seen for the first time something so hideous.' black eyes were looking at my face with a deep-felt grief 'Will you forgive me?'  
  
I cast down my eyes. Once more I saw the scene in the inn and I quivered at the memory of a wild hatred that had contorted Ramana's subtle face. Could anyone lose oneself in rage so much? Could all barriers fall down and turned a thinking being into a murderous beast? How could anyone do such a thing to the other human?!  
  
And than I though about Perseus Potter...  
  
I slowly rose my head and looked into Ramana's eyes.  
  
'I understand you,' I said quietly 'You don't know how much I do...'  
  
A gentle smile lightened up her face.  
  
'Thank you, Tom,' she whispered.  
  
'I would like to know, how did you do that,' I couldn't suppress curiosity 'It was a kind of magic, wasn't it?'  
  
'Ramana is a Voximper,' explained Teresiah 'She could control another's person mind by means of her voice. A man, exposed to the action of the voice-order, will obey any command.'  
  
'I owe everything to the Preceptor,' added Ramana proudly 'He specialises in the magic of mind.'  
  
Suddenly a silent 'pop' sounded and several steps further a man materialised, wrapped in a long, black cloak.  
  
'The prodigal daughter!' he exclaimed with a theatrical exaltation 'News are spreading fast. Pretty well...'  
  
'Shut up, Chuckle!' hissed Ramana and I would swear she used a voice-order.  
  
The new-comer became silent and for a while his blue eyes assumed a vacant, glazy expression. He shuddered, threw off his hood and approached me with a smile on his fool-moon face.  
  
'Tom Riddle ! Finally I can meet you !' he called, shaking my hand 'I'm very glad. I've heard a lot about you. The Preceptor...'  
  
'It's not time for the chats, Chuckle,' Teresiah broke the deluge of words 'They are waiting for us.'  
  
Chuckle looked offended.  
  
'Why yes,' he assented coldly 'The Preceptor has sent me for you.' and turning to me he added 'That growler Teresiah hasn't manners at all. I didn't even introduce myself, did I? My name is Nero. Nero Satanini.'  
  
'More commonly known as Chuckle,' mutterer Ramana.  
  
Nero gave her a scowl but left this remark without any comment.  
  
'Well then, if savoir vivre has been fulfilled, we can go,' said dryly Teresiah and disapparated.  
  
'Off we go!' exclaimed Nero enthusiastically 'Welcome in the Schwarzberg castle, Tom !'  
  


* * *

(*) tzolkin - holy calendar of Maya; here used as a name of the magical object.  
  
Teresiah - I'm not sure if it should be written like that in English, but he was a wise man in the ancient Greece. Athena made him blind but instead gave him a deep knowledge and a power of seeing the future. 


	7. The Preceptor, part II

...continuation  
  
The Preceptor was waiting for me in a small chamber on the top of the middle tower. Ramana and Nero stayed downstairs and Teresiah led me up the spiral stairs, lit by the pale-blue light of the torches. Once more I was amazed how easily and self-confidently that blinded boy could move through the castle.  
  
We reached the wooden door curved in some strange creatures, among which I could recognise snakes and spiders. Teresiah knocked three times and leafs of the door drew aside noiselessly. We entered inside.  
  
The Preceptor was sitting on a high chair, stuffed with black velvet. His face and the whole figure sunk in a half-light, I could state however that the man was tall and rather thin. His bony hands were clasped on his knees and I saw a large, red signet on his finger.  
  
'Wait here,' whispered Teresiah and, leaving me at the door, he approached the Preceptor and bowed with esteem.  
  
I didn't hear even the slightest whisper but I was sure that Teresiah was relating something to his master, because he didn't take his eyes off his face and from time to time he nodded thoughtfully.  
  
Finally Teresiah finished, bowed again, smiled to me and left the chamber, closing silently the door.  
  
The Preceptor waved his wand and the bright, yellow light filled the room. And I gasped in bewilderment and was staring at the wizards with eyes big as plates. I knew him ! I knew that face !  
  
In front of me Karl Friedriech Grindewald was sitting, the Minister of Magic in time when I started Hogwart.  
  
'Welcome, Tom,' he said with a smile that covered his pale face with subtle wrinkles 'I've been waiting for you for a long time. As a matter of fact, since the day I had found your name in the Public Register.'  
  
The Public Register ! In a split second I remembered a talk I had with Albus Dumbledore four years ago. He told me then that the information about my origin he had got in strict confidence from his best friend.  
  
From the Minister of Magic.  
  
Karl Friedriech Grindewald.  
  
The Preceptor was observing me with an inscrutable smile.  
  
'Old times,' he sighed 'They say this war is a Muggle business. Don't believe it, my lad. I was born and grown up in England, but my father was German. And in September 1939 everybody suddenly recollected that fact. Of course, no one has ever told me openly that they didn't want to see me in the minister chair any longer...but I remember how they started to treat me. Those furtive whispers, glances, that courteous, studied iciness. Further co-operation became impossible. Minister has to enjoy confidence and acceptance of the community and many people considered me almost a traitor. I had only one way out: to resign.'  
  
I was listening to him fascinated, though the Minister's words were not the main reason. I was lost in admiration over how easily he had penetrated my thoughts and memories. Similar feeling used to come upon me sometimes when I was talking with Dumbledore, but I always explained it by his great sagacity and wisdom. But this time I knew it was something different. I remembered Ramana's words: "The Preceptor specialises in the magic of mind." I had no doubt that the man, sitting in front of me, could read in mind. And maybe not only he...?  
  
Grindewald didn't take his eyes off me and the same subtle smile was still wandering on his thin lips.  
  
'Yes, the magic of mind is a beautiful and extreme field of knowledge,' he said 'But only some few are worthy of studying it, those ones the most talented and persistent. I was lucky to be one of them. When I had finished Hogwart forty years ago, I got possibility of continuation my studies in the famous Academy Asrmentis. It was a great honour,' he added seriously 'Every years only ten new students were admitted. During five years I spent there only two English wizards appeared in the academy. I and Albus Dumbledore.'  
  
'So he can also read in minds!' I exclaimed 'Now I understand...' I ceased talking abashed, realising I had interrupted the Preceptor.  
  
Next time that evening I was cross with myself.  
  
'I have to control myself,' I thought sternly 'I cannot behave like a crude kid.'  
  
Preceptor's dark eyes were staring at me without a single wink. And suddenly, in a stroke of a dreadful understanding, I realised it didn't matter whether I would put something into words or not. He could see my every thought anyway. In a spilt second I understood with horror that nothing could be hidden from that man. My mind didn't belong to me any longer. He read in it like in an open book. He knew everything about me, whether I wanted him to do so or not. I felt as if I was standing in front of the Preceptor completely naked and completely helpless.  
  
'A nasty feeling, isn't it?' said Grindewald quietly 'To realise that you were a subject of total surveillance. You feel as if in one moment you had lost your privacy, your individuality, your own "self".'  
  
I felt very uncomfortable. Next time that evening I heard my own thoughts, said by the other man. But this time there was something in the wizard's soft voice that made me suppose that the Preceptor had passed through it himself. And that it wasn't a pleasant memory.   
  
'Usually,' continued Grindewald 'the victim is not aware that has been exposed to the action of the mind magic. And this is the whole trick: to act unnoticeably and without leaving distinct traces. A bit like a burglar...' he added with a slight irony.  
  
I shuddered when I heard a word "victim" in that context. It sounded alarmingly and ominously. The Preceptor looked at me thoughtfully.  
  
'As any science, the magic of mind can be both a valuable gift and a dangerous weapon, especially in the wrong hands. And believe me,' he sighed heavily 'a temptation to use it to the ones own purpose is indeed intense...'  
  
Every moment I felt more and more uncomfortable. Why was he telling me all those things? What is he driving at?  
  
'Tom,' Preceptor's voice has changed its tone; now it was strong and imperious 'Tell me, what exactly happened in Hogwart this year.'  
  
I was staring at him, not apprehending. In Hogwart ? Why did he ask me about it ? And suddenly I felt an icy prick of fear in my heart though I didn't know what I was really afraid of. It was totally irrational but I had a presentiment that I faced something horrible, something I would rather not to discover. But the Preceptor's voice didn't allow any resistance. Fighting the words that stuck in my dry throat, I told about the mysterious attacks, about Myrtle death, about the enormous spider and finally about my heroic clash with Hagrid.  
  
All the time I feel Preceptor's burning gaze fixed on me. I had a feeling that those piercing eyes could see not only my every thought but also every nerve, every cell of my body.  
  
An expression of a deep bitterness appeared on Grindewald's slim face.  
  
'So this is truth,' he whispered gloomily. 'I didn't expect he would go so far...'  
  
He looked at me and grief twinkled in his eyes.  
  
'Tom, I know that it will be shocking for you to hear what I'm going to tell you. But you must know the truth. Teresiah van der Blinde is a Memor, it means he specialises in the magic of memory. When you met him in the inn, he investigated your mind and discovered, that somebody had change the structure of your memory. Your memories are not your real ones. You remember only what somebody wanted you to do.'  
  
I was staring at him bewildered. I didn't believe my own ears. It couldn't be truth ! It was just impossible ! Who could do such a thing ?! Why ?! And how could I not be aware that my memory had been modified !  
  
'It's impossible...', I whispered dully trying to convince myself; but a tiny part of my consciousness has already known that Preceptor's words, no matter how strangely they sounded, were true. And that it was exactly what I was scaring. 'Who...who did it?' I moaned.  
  
The wizard smiled grimly.  
  
'You still haven't guessed...' he said bitterly 'No wonder, this is a work of a great specialist. He always acts perfectly,' antipathy twinkled in Grindewald eyes. 'But now he met me. Watch out, Tom,' he pulled out his wand and pointed at me 'I will try to take back the modification. _MEMORIA REGENERATIO_!'  
  
A wand tip flashed for a moment with a yellow light and then died out. I expected that something extraordinary would happen, that manipulation with the memory would be connected with some very realistic senses. But nothing changed.  
  
'He failed...' I thought disappointed and looked at the Preceptor but, to my great surprise, he was smiling with satisfaction.  
  
'It was easier than I had expected,' he said 'Obviously he didn't assume that anyone would notice modification. He didn't invent anything subtle.'  
  
My heart beat harder. Carefully, as if venturing into the unknown lands, I recalled the beginning of June...  
  
And I knew. I remembered everything: the Chamber of Secretes, Tanathos, Slytherin's inheritance. It was a night of June again; I have already stunned Hagrid. Then I saw my friend Amis, ghastly pale but determined to tell the truth. And finally I saw a man who slowly rose his wand and recited incantation. Amis fell down unconscious while the wizard looked at me. The last thing I remembered were blue, piercing eyes...   
  
I knew who had modified my memory.  
  
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE !!!  
  
The man I trusted. The man I esteemed. The man who was for me a personification of uprightness, honour and wisdom. The man who saved my life.  
  
And that very man treated me so treacherously and ruthlessly. I was crushed.  
  
'Why has he done it?!' I asked desperately 'To protect Amis? But I would never do anything to hurt him. He is my best friend ! We are like brothers !'  
  
The Preceptor's eyes twinkled, grim smile twisted his mouth.  
  
'Oh, I'm sure dear Albus realised that perfectly well.' he said ironically 'And wasn't pleased with it at all. I'm afraid,' the irony vanished from his voice; now it sounded sympathetically 'it will be a long time before you see your friend again.'  
  
Even if the Preceptor couldn't read in mind an expression of utmost bewilderment on my face spoke for itself.  
  
'He is in the Academy of Magic in Salem and will stay there for the next three years,' he answered the unexpressed question 'And if I were you I wouldn't wait for his letter.' he could see my thought before I formulated them myself 'Dumbledore modified his memory, too.'  
  
I couldn't believe my ears. I didn't want to believe it. The truth was too horrifying. How Dumbledore could deal with me this way ?! I tried desperately to find any excuse for him. He wanted to protect Amis...He has done it for him...  
  
'Forget those illusions, Tom' Preceptor's voice was icy cold 'He was only anxious to prevent that whole story cast a shadow on the name: Dumbledore. For Albus reputation is more precious than anything else; more precious than friendship and truth. Believe me, Tom, that kind of people could be merciless for those, who dared to injure their good name.'  
  
I was listening, thoroughly shocked. I realised that for all those years I haven't known real Albus Dumbledore but the man he pretended to be. Only that night of June he threw off the mask. And didn't want to leave any witness...  
  
'That's not all yet,' continued Preceptor, clasping his fingers 'Modifying your memory Albus gained security that no one would ever connect the students' death with the Chamber of Secrets.'  
  
'But why?' I couldn't understand 'I was the one who opened the Chamber. It was my fault that Myrtle died. When Dumbledore guessed the truth, it was...'  
  
'He has known from the very beginning, Tom,' said Grindewald bitterly 'Albus always believed that the Chamber of Secrets existed. He read everything on that subject, it was like an obsession. He believed that the Chamber would give him might and power and that was what Albus had always desired most of all. He tried to find it already as a student in Hogwart, but he met and obstacle he couldn't overcome. He didn't know Parseltongue,' the wizard nodded thoughtfully 'Then he started his studies in the Arsmentis, after the work in the Ministry...but he has never stopped thinking about the Chamber of Secrets. When he had known from me that a new student, Tom Riddle, originated from the Slytherin's house, he decided to take advantage of it. He expected you to achieve what he had failed...and he was right. Though I think that even he hadn't anticipated you would deal with the task so quickly. And than... well, he must have felt responsible for what happened in Hogwart. He knew he made a mistake...and that is something that Dumbledore doesn't like to recognize. He decided it would be better if you forget about the Chamber of Secrets.'  
  
I stood motionless. I felt growing cold in my inside. Dumbledore's words we ringing in my ears: 'Tom, it would be better you will know all at once. You are the heir of Salazar Slytherin.' I always believed he had told me that because he had though I should know the truth. But it was nothing more than first move of an experienced chess player...  
  
Dumbledore used me ! Cheated me ! Has been cheating from the very beginning! How could I be mistaken so badly! How could I be so naive and trustful!  
  
Preceptor was looking at me with sympathy.  
  
'I know what you feel, Tom,' he said quietly 'We used to be friends once, Dumbledore and I. Best friends. But when I've been chosen the Minister of magic...' he sighed heavily 'Albus competed too and he has never forgiven me this defeat. Of course, he didn't betray his feelings. He hid the grudge deep in his heart and still pretended to be my good friend. But when the Muggle war started ...' bitter smiled appeared on Preceptor's lips 'It was him who, "by accident", put forward a question of my German origin. You know the rest...'  
  
The silence fell. Each of us was pondering over own bitter thoughts. I felt betrayed and lonely as never before. And suddenly I longed for Elias Homer. My heart squeezed in black despair. I would give everything he could be with me. He would never let me down...  
  
Preceptor looked at me sadly.  
  
'The truth is often painful,' he said softly 'But even the worst truth is better than lie. And I'm glad I could tell you about it. I take it as a kind of compensation. You know...' he sighed 'In some sense I feel responsible for what befell you. I told Dumbledore who you were.' he stopped talking and fixed his eyes in the darkness outside the window 'Believe me, Tom, I reproached myself many times my own noble-mindedness,' continued Grindewald 'But then I though I couldn't act differently. He had right to know about you, because...'he breathed heavily as if bracing himself up before the final step' The Dumbledores also come from Slytherin. The last line. Little knows about it. Albus has never considered it as a honour.'  
  
I was staring at him, astounded. It sounded impossible. It must have been impossible...but was it, really? After all, Amis was in Slytherin !  
  
'Albus' only daughter was a very talented healer,' said Preceptor 'When she finished Hogwart, shed got a job in St. Mungo Hospital at once. Albus was proud of her. But she wanted to use her talent in a different way. She run away from home and settled in the Muggle village. They thought she was a doctor.'  
  
I felt the ground gave way under my feet and the icy claws of fear and dread caught my throat. I have already known what I would hear next...  
  
'She was your mother, Tom. Felicia Dumbledore-Riddle.'  
  


*

I was standing on a small, round platform of the Schwarzberg castle west tower. Moon hid behind the mountains, clouds came from the north and the night became dark, starless. But still greater darkness prevailed in my soul. Darkness that relentlessly devoured everything what had been beautiful and good in there.  
  
I clenched my fists. Well then, if the world is such for me, I will be the same for the world. The ones who made me suffer...they will regret. They will beg for my mercy. I will pay them back. All of them.  
  
I felt a surge of hatred, rising in my heart. And I wanted to let it overcome me, I wanted to abandon myself in wrath, I wanted to trample and destroy, just like my whole world had been trampled and destroyed.  
  
Albus Dumbledore deprived me from everything. Family, childhood, happiness. He made my mother die lonely and abandoned only because she dared oppose him. He made my, his grandson, his flesh and blood, grow up without love I have always desired so much.  
  
And then, as if it was not enough, Albus Dumbledore ruined my faith in the people's kind heart and nobleness, leaving instead only bitterness and distrust. For all those years he had never had any interest for my life - until the day I received a letter from Hogwart. Only then he deigned to accept my existence; but the only reason was that he needed me. He wanted to open the Chamber of Secrets with my hands. And when it happened what had to happen, he didn't scruple to broke into my memory. He treated me like a useless object.  
  
And finally Dumbledore deprived me from the brother before I even realised I had one.  
  
I breathed deeply. I reminded Homer's words: "rage is a bad counsellor." I shouldn't act too hastily. I had time...a lot of time. The sweeter revenge is, the longer it matures.  
  
Albus Dumbledore doesn't know what I'm preparing for him. And when he knows, he will regret he didn't finish himself earlier. I will show him what real pain means. I will show him what despair is.  
  
Dear grandpa will be preying for death!  
  
I HATE HIM  
  



	8. The Dark Arts, part I

The last chapter before Christams. Tom enters the dark path. Then faces Dumbledore. The history of Lord Voldemort name is (partly) revealed.   
  
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU !  
  


* * *

  
  
6. The Dark Arts   
  
Occlumency is a difficult art. It needs patience, discipline and iron character. Closing the mind against the infiltration of the other wizard is like fighting off the attacks of a powerful and cunning enemy. A single blockade is not enough to stop a well-trained foe. As the walls of the most powerful fortress will fall, sooner or later, under pressure of a countless army, so will any barrier protecting the mind. Therefore one has to raise new blockades and fortifications all the time, to delude and deceive the enemy. The structure of the mind cannot be fixed but must remain in a continuous motion. Only then the victory can be gained.  
  
The beginning wasn't easy but the hatred infused me with the new strengths. I had a distinct aim in front of me and during the long hours of the training I have never forgotten who was my enemy and who was waiting for me at the end of the dark path I had stepped on. I think that were it not for Albus Dumbledore, whose face, twisted in sneering, patronizing smile haunted me every night, I wouldn't achieve mastery of Occlumency as quickly it surprised even the Preceptor himself.  
  
It was him who, two hours a day, taught me everything I should know about the human mind, to take control of it on day and become its master - a real Mentor. But most of time I spent with Teresiah. Now, after a month of difficult and strenuous training that consisted in mutual attempts to break into each other's mind, I have already understood why that blinded man could overcome his infirmity so perfectly. Teresiah, who read in mind so easily as if it was a child's play, see the world with other people's eyes. And, as he tried to convince me, such a way of perception was much more useful since it allowed him to see everything from different perspectives.  
  
I couldn't deny it but I still considered Teresiah's blindness to be injustice and many times I wanted to ask, whether there weren't any magical ways of restoring his eyesight. I always restrained myself from doing it since I didn't want to hurt him, but the longer I knew him, the more evident it became that Teresiah not only resigned himself to his fate but also was proud of it.  
  
'It's a real gift!' he used to say with a conviction that always filled me with a vague anxiety 'You are looking at the world and it seems to you that you recognised its real face. You can see the chair and the table,' he pointed at the furniture made of a dark wood, the only outfit of his Spartan room beside a narrow bed. 'But can you be sure that they really exist? What if they are just an illusion ? What if somebody deludes your senses, showing you the pictures that are not real beings and makes you believe they are true? What then, Tom? Aren't you like a blind man yourself?'  
  
I was silent, looking anxiously around as if I was afraid that the common decoration of the room would disappear in a moment, giving way to something I even didn't expect to exist. And though the table was still a table, I knew that there was a deep wisdom in Teresiah's words. I have already discovered the power of the Illusion.  
  
Nero turned out to be a specialist in this field. Before a week passed since the day of our first meeting, he managed to demonstrate me a whole range of his skills, beginning with the old trick with illusory door in a very solid wall, and ending on changing of the castle dinning-room into a forest glade. It was a rare experience. I one moment I found myself among the high, soughing pine-trees, I felt a gentle breeze on my face and warm beams of the setting sun. I breathed in the clear air, full of scent of the wild mint and camomile. But when I bent down to cull a snow-white flower, everything disappeared and I was again in the high, stone hall, looking in amazement at the fork lying on the floor.  
  
'That is Illusion!' exclaimed Nero enthusiastically, patting me friendly on the back.  
  
'This is also the magic of mind,' explained Teresiah 'The Illusionist doesn't create false pictures or sounds, but affects our senses so that they give us false information. He uses man's own perfection against him. And that is the reason why my blindness is a gift,' he said cheerfully '_Only in silence is a word, only in darkness is a light_'(*) he sang softly 'The one who wants to see the light of the truth, must lose oneself in the darkness. I'm void of the eyesight and that is why the optical Illusion doesn't affect me. I see the world as it really is.'  
  
It always impressed me very much how naturally he used the world "see". Though I could only guess what Teresiah's world looked like, I understood he would never exchanged it for the other one. It was difficult to believe but his infirmity made him really happy.  
  
'Don't trust your senses, Tom', he used to tell me 'It's too easy to cheat them.'  
  


*

The hot August was coming to an end. In two days time I was supposed to go back to Hogwart and to face the man I hated so much. If I only could vent my anger, shout out right to his face everything I told to his phantom when it stood in front of me during humid, sleepless nights. If I only could punish him, with a single wave of my wand, for everything I had suffered ! I could do it. I have learnt a lot during those six weeks in the Schwarzberg castle. The magic of mind is not only reading in minds and illusion. I saw with my own eyes what Ramana's voice could do. And that was only a small sample of what a trained Mentor could achieve. I have never expected there were so many curses causing pain and suffering. And not only the physical one.  
  
'Gaining control over the human's mind gives you an absolute power.' said the Preceptor after demonstrating me the Cruciatus curse for the first time 'You must be aware that it is within your power both to alleviate and cause the pain. You can make somebody suffers. You can also take control over his feelings. Fear, despair, feeling of hopelessness and loneliness ... No one will bear it.'  
  
'But I don't want to hurt anybody!' I exclaimed, thrilled 'I don't want anybody suffer through me...' I hesitated '...except him.'  
  
The Preceptor's face remained inscrutable and only deep in his dark eyes something strange twinkled for a moment; like cold, grim laugher.  
  
'I'm not teaching you those curses for you run along the Diagon Alley and cast them at anybody you met.' he said dryly 'But every stick has two ends and you mustn't forget about it. You have to be able to protect yourself against those who don't have such scruples and don't demur at using the magic for their own purposes. Against people like Albus Dumbledore. And to defeat him, you must know his weapon.'  
  
'Is it the Dark Arts?' I asked quietly.  
  
The wizard looked at me piercingly.  
  
'If you say "dark", do you mean "evil"?' he asked gently and I nodded 'Magic is never evil, only the men who used it are. Any power could be used both in just and unjust cause. But in itself is neither good nor evil. Is much older than mankind.' he sighed 'Did you hear the story of Louis Saver? He lived in France in the last century. He saved fifteen Muggle children using the magic commonly believed to be exceptionally dangerous, exceptionally "dark"...' Preceptor's thin mouth twisted in ironic smile 'Three years later he died, burned into ash with a simple Lighting Spell, cast by an old, half-blinded witch who didn't see him in a dim alley.'  
  
The silence fell. Preceptor was standing motionless, lost in thoughts; red glow of the setting sun reflected in his black, fathomless eyes. I was staring at that face, proud and noble but marked with years and concerns. And I realised why Ramana, Teresiah and Nero always talked about him with such an esteem and devotion. I also would do everything for him.  
  
'Master!' I said fervently 'I don't want to go back to Hogwart. Let me stay here. I will not learn anymore there, but with you...'  
  
'No, Tom,' said quietly Preceptor, putting hand on my shoulder 'The time has not come yet.'  
  


*

The Great Hall was filled with a yellow light. The students, all dressed in black robes and pointed hats, were sitting at four long tables and were waiting impatiently for the beginning of the Welcome Feast. Headmaster Dippet was looking at them with a kind-hearted smile on his old, weary face. He rose his hand and the murmur of voices died away like a rumble of a receding storm.  
  
'Welcome, my dears,' said the wizard 'We begin the next year of learning. For some of you it's going to be the very first step on the paths of knowledge.' he looked encouragingly at the group of frightened first-years gathered next to the teachers' table. 'For the others it is a crowning of seven years' labours and struggles. Time goes by. Something ends, something begins. For more than twenty five years I've been holding a honourable office of the Headmaster of one of the best schools of magic. It's time to give way to the younger ones.'  
  
A silence fell, so deep that one could hear the howling of the wind outside the castle windows. To judge by the teachers' faces, they were also very surprised.  
  
'Yes, my dears,' smiled Dippet 'Since today Hogwart has a new Headmaster. I have no doubt I entrust the school with the most worthy. You know him well. I present you...' he pointed at the man who was sitting on his right-hand side '...Headmaster Albus Dumbledore !'  
  
'WHAT ?!' I shrieked springing to my feet.  
  
I couldn't believe my own ears. Was it a joke? Dumbledore the Headmaster of Hogwart? That envious, mean man whose all live was based on the lies? Who wouldn't stop at anything to realise his pathological ambitions? What a nonsense!  
  
'Mister Riddle?' Dippet sounded surprised with my sudden exclamation 'Do you have any remark?'  
  
Did I have? For weeks I've been thinking of nothing else but of shouting out the truth about Albus Dumbledore. I wanted all those wizards who admired and esteemed him to see his real face. I wanted to crush what he valued most of all - his fame and his good name - and I wanted to do it right here and right now...  
  
'_The time has not come yet_!' Preceptor's words rang in my mind loudly and clearly. I looked at Dippet.  
  
'What a great news!' I said trying to make my voice sounding a little bit more enthusiastic.  
  
The old wizard nodded with content and returned to his talk, speaking highly of virtues of the new Headmaster. Dumbledore, instead, was looking at me thoughtfully. He was not the man who could be put off with any bland words. He felt I wanted to say something completely different than I finally did. And it made him anxious.  
  
I knew what was going to happen in a moment; the first test of the knowledge the Preceptor had taught me was approaching. But I was prepared for that I looked defiantly into the blue eyes. For a few seconds nothing has happened but suddenly I felt that Dumbledore started to search my mind. Slowly, carefully, not taking his eyes off my face, he began to look through the structure of my memory. And I let him do it. What Dumbledore was exploring was rubbish, a dummy constructed by the Preceptor to that very end. My real memory was save but Dumbledore shouldn't realise at all that somebody else had manipulated in my mind.  
  
I knew it was a risky game. Dumbledore was a good Mentor and in encounter with him my skill could turn out insufficient. Therefore I was following his every step, ready to throw him out of my mind in any moment.  
  
I don't know how long it lasted. Time loses its meaning when you travel through the depths of the mind. But finally Dumbledore sighed, once more looked at me piercingly and turned to Dippet who has just asked him to make a short inaugural speech.  
  
I took a deep breath - I won the first battle.  
  


*

Days and weeks were passing, similar to each other and routine. Hogwart has never seemed to me so dull and gloomy. I felt like in a cage. During the lessons I was bored to death and soon I lost interest even in searching the minds of my classmates. Besides, what fun could I find there if their problems limited to the question who was going to win the next Quidditch match and how much homework we would get. For some length of time I've been following the ups and downs of the emotional life of Artemis Fairy and Lucas Young, but when they broke up in November I lost the last source of amusement.  
  
I missed serious Teresiah, cheerful Nero, charming Ramana. I remembered the long, summer evenings we used to pass on a large terrace of the western tower, chatting light-heartedly, casting carelessly the spells that most of my classmates didn't even expect to exist and enjoying every minute in the Preceptor's castle.  
  
And now I was stuck in Hogwart, separated from my Master and my friends, separated from the knowledge I desired. Moreover, every day I had to face the man I hated so much. And though I tried to conceal my feelings under the veil of politeness and forced respect, Dumbledore noticed that my attitude towards him had changed completely.  
  
The last week of January, after Transfiguration lesson (though he became a Headmaster he didn't abandoned his lectures), he asked me for a short talk.  
  
'Tom, is everything all right?' he asked gently 'I have the impression that something rankles you. Sometimes you seem so...distant.'  
  
He looked at me searchingly and I have already prepared myself to force back the attack on my mind but to my great surprised he didn't try to. He was just observing me attentively and with a concern.  
  
'I know you miss Amis,' he began carefully, as if he was trying one of the possibilities 'but you understand that the scholarship in Salem was a great chance for him.'  
  
I hardly restrained myself form spitting on his face. The scholarship - so he called it ! How could he lie to me so cynically!  
  
'If something annoys you, ' continued Dumbledore not taking his piercing eyes off me 'you can always tell me about it,'  
  
I smiled ironically and looked straight into his eyes.  
  
'Of course, Headmaster.' I said.  
  


*

When I crossed a threshold of the Schwarzberg castle I felt I came back home.  
  
'Tom, finally!' called Ramana running up to me and kissing my cheek 'We missed you !'  
  
'So do I,' I replied, shaking hands with Teresiah and Nero.  
  
'You acquitted yourself perfectly well,' said the Preceptor when I sat in front of him in his office 'But I was sure you wouldn't disappoint me.'  
  
Golden beams of the June sun were falling on the table, covered with piles of papers among which I recognised a fragment of the Europe's map. Schwarzberg was denoted with a red dot and thin, concentric lines diverged from it in all directions. But when I tried to read where they led, the lines faded and after a while disappeared completely.  
  
The Preceptor clasped his fingers and fixed his piercing gaze on me.  
  
'Tom, it's time you get your new Name.'  
  
I nodded. As early as last year Teresiah told me that Grindewald's followers use special pseudonyms, so called Names, which cannot be revealed to anybody but the Preceptor himself. There was a powerful spell connected with the Names that created strong psychical ties between the persons using them. It magnified the effect of the mind magic, allowing for example to read thoughts and feelings of the persons even few hundreds kilometres apart, what in the normal circumstances would be impossible. Therefore the Name was the highest level of initiation for the Grindewald followers and I was bursting with pride that I proved to be worthy.  
  
'Master,' my voice was shaking with emotions 'My new Name is Voldemurde.'  
  
Preceptor rose his wand and slowly said four words.  
  
'_Voldemurde, miles quidam meus_'.(**)  
  
The Binding Spell has been cast.  
  
Grindewald smiled with satisfaction.  
  
'Now you are one of us,' he said solemnly 'The Chosen one. When the Day comes, you will stand by my side and achieve the deeds, which would wonder the whole world. Soon...'  
  
'Yes, Master,' I whispered.  
  
Whatever the Preceptor's words meant, I knew I would do everything for him.  
  
The sun hid behind the mountains. One of the last beams fell on the red phial, standing on the window-still, and for a short while the table was lit by crimson light. As if suddenly everything run with blood...  
  
'Tom,' Preceptor's voice roused me from meditation 'What does your Name mean? I must admit it sounds a little bit enigmatically. '  
  
I smiled and waved my wand. Opalescent letters shone in the air, creating an inscription:  
  


DUMBLEODRE

  
The utmost bewilderment appeared on the Preceptor face. Satisfied with the effect, I waved the wand again and the letters whirled shaping a new word:  
  


BOLDEMURDE

  
'Holly, unblemished name,' I said venomously 'I'm sure dear grandpa would be delighted I use it. Only one more change' I waved the wand for the third time 'I prefer a letter "V". It's a symbol of victory.'  
  
The letters whirled and formed my new Name.  
  


VOLDEMURDE

  
Preceptor's dark eyes twinkled triumphantly.  
  


* * *

(*) Ursula Le Guin, "Wizard from the Earthsea"  
(**) in Latin: Voldemurde, one of my soldiers 


End file.
